Colorado to Deploy Highway Photo Radar Vans

[RobRich]

The linked article includes a PDF document of the actual legislative act.

The new program will first create a "work zone" where speed limits are lowered and fines doubled for up to four hours before any worker actually shows up. During this time, conventional police enforcement would issue newly boosted fines of up to $540 each. Once a highway worker arrives, a private company can activate photo radar vans capable of issuing thousands of citations per day. The Colorado Department of Transportation would pay this company a bounty for each ticket it is able to issue using gas tax money.

The legislation then makes it possible for police to ticket any vehicle that passes a speed camera van that is parked on the side of the road if the motorist had been in an adjacent lane and failed to "move over" to the left. Several states already require motorists to take similar actions for marked ambulances and police cars, but Colorado will become the first to add "privately owned vehicles as are designated by the state motor vehicle licensing agency necessary to the preservation of life and property."

Source: theNewspaper.com

[Steve R Jones]

Texas has had work zones/double fines "if" workers are present for a long time.

up to four hours before any worker actually shows up

That would bother me unless the highways had signs clearly indicating when the work zone is in effect.

[jkrohn]

They do have very clear signs here about the work zones and lots of warning generally, at least where I am.

This seems more like a money grab than an actual attempt to improve safety to me though.

Jkrohn

[RobRich]

We have work zones with increased fines in Florida. Those areas are typically patrolled, and large tickets are commonly issued.

Here is my concern....

Once a highway worker arrives, a private company can activate photo radar vans capable of issuing thousands of citations per day.

Thousands of tickets per day at a single work zone? As Jkrohn noted, it seems more like a revenue generation mechanism instead of a traffic safety enforcement issue.

[Steve R Jones]

It's not much different then red light cameras....And in theory will save workers lives.....

But I believe they should ticket the driver and not the car. If the ticket shows my photo so be it...

I had a ticket mailed to me from not paying a toll.....The ticket had a nice photo of my rear license plate.

Issue #1 - I used my toll tag but it didn't register me correctly. (easy to get them to write the fine off)

Issue #2 - It was a brand new car...Dealership screwed up my address - thus screwing the address for the license plate and the address where the ticket was mailed. When I finially received it, it was past due....It could have gotten to the "warrant issued" stage...

Automation is nice - good old manual hand me a ticket officer is prefered.

[M_Six]

Illinois has had these for a while now. I saw one around Chicago once. There were four lanes of traffic flying by it. I was wondering how they can tell which car was speeding when four at once pass the van.