CDOT’s speed cameras flip justice on its head in Democrat-run Colorado

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

CDOT warned you, now they’re going to start taking your money.

Per the CPR article linked first below, CDOT (granted the authority by a 2023 bill which you’ll find a link for embedded in the article) is going to start issuing citations instead of warnings for their automated speeding cams. This is for a section of HWY 119 between Longmont and Boulder.

As part of reading the article, I went back on some of the links to CDOT’s websites, and found the one where CDOT lists the areas where they are using their automated cameras. That site is linked second below.

If you’re on the highways often and want to avoid getting a ticket, keep that one handy.

In looking over the CDOT sites on this speeding enforcement, what you see in screenshot 1 caught my eye.

Maybe it’s just me being old fashioned, but golly it sure seems like it violates the Constitution, norms around the way we enforce law, and common sense to make an innocent party responsible for the violations of others.

It’s also a violation of same to make that innocent party responsible for enforcing state law.

This state law, and the way that CDOT enforces it, flip that on its head. If someone is driving your car and speeds, you as the owner are penalized. If you don’t like it, why you can just get the money from the person that broke the law.

I assume (since CDOT nor the law make any explicit statement either way) that you’re going to get to incur the expenses and loss of your time to do the state’s work for them.

Where else but in Democrat-controlled Colorado would a backward system like this make sense? Imagine that you were the owner of a car and your friend was taking his turn driving. He got pulled over for speeding and the cop hands the ticket to you as the car’s owner.

When questioned, she says over his shoulder on the way back to her cruiser that if you don’t like it you can always just collect from your friend.

Since when does law enforcement work this way? Since Democrats took control of the state apparently. Screenshot 2 shows you the sponsors of this bill in case you were curious and wanted to say a thank you. A word of thanks to CDOT would probably also be in order.

https://www.cpr.org/2025/08/31/cdot-cameras-monitor-speeding-highway-119

https://www.codot.gov/programs/speedenforcement/violations

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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