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Letter to the editor: Excessive speeding, irresponsible driving impact highway safety

James Tuthill
Silverthorne

Your report on the Colorado Department of Transportation’s meeting with Summit County officials this week (“I-70 concerns dominate conversation at CDOT listening tour stop in Summit County,” published Aug. 13 in the Summit Daily News) identified “three stretches of road with higher numbers of crashes: the section of I-70 between Frisco and Copper Mountain near Vail Pass and two sections of Highway 9 …” You go on to describe certain “safety and navigability concerns” acknowledged by CDOT regional planning manager Mark Rogers. But there apparently were glaring omissions in the officials’ discussions of highway safety: excessive speeding and irresponsible driving.

I’ve lived in five states including southern and northern California. I have never witnessed the recurring and excessive speeding that I have here in Colorado. Every time I go on I-70, there are many vehicles going 85, 95 and 100 miles an hour. How do I know? More than 50 years of driving. They weave in and out of traffic creating serious risks. And it’s frequent to see drivers doing 70 mph on Highway 9. And just about every time I go out, like yesterday, some fool either runs a red light, turns left in front of me or almost hits me. Is it the reduced oxygen? 

So where is the Colorado State Patrol and why aren’t they catching these people and making driving safer? Is it funding or something else? I’m waiting for an answer and hoping that drivers that speed excessively will pay the fines they deserve and possibly slow down in the future.


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