House Transportation, Housing & Local Government [Mar 31, 2026 - Upon Adjournment]

The committee will come to order. Ms. Falco, please call the roll.

Here.

I'm here.

Excused.

Excused.

Paschal.

Phillips.

Richardson.

Sucla.

Velasco.

Excuse

Excuse

Here

We've got our sponsors here The committee will come to order

Here

That was terrifying

I'm still here.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, committee members. I am happy to present to you Senate Bill 105. And it's a very, very simple little bill, simply stating that it requires coroners to file written disclosures of their financial interests in specific, specified businesses regulated by their respective offices within 30 days of taking office or 30 days of acquiring the financial interest, whichever is later. The filing is a public record and we do have two amendments, if you'd like me to explain.

Representative Martinez. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, committee members. This comes straight out of Southern Colorado to being able just to make sure that we're good stewards of the elected positions and making sure that there's accountability and that the public has awareness of what financial interest the coroners are having and making sure that those are public. So we request an aye vote.

Okay, L003. Now what this does is two years ago we changed up here at the state level, we changed some parameters for coroners and able to run for office. And some of those are hard to meet if you're in a small county. And while we're trying to work through trying to meet those thresholds or maybe perhaps a better way of meeting those thresholds, we're raising the population to 300,000 before you qualify. because counties at 300,000 or more have an abundance of that threshold that can run for office. And L004, you'll notice, is a typo that corrects coroners to coroners.

Yes L somebody can move L Brett Paschal I move Amendment L to Senate Bill 105

That's a proper motion and a second. I know you told us about your amendment. Are there any questions about Amendment L-003? Any objections? Seeing none, L-3 is adopted. Representative Paschal, would you move L-4?

Second.

No, ma'am.

Representative Richardson. Yes, I do have one. I'd move L005 to SB105.

Okay. L5, understanding the background and the purpose of the bill, I represent four very small counties. Up until a few years ago, county coroners didn't even have the option of being paid as a full-time elected, and there have been some concerns raised that the way the bill is written, that some of the folks that might otherwise run for office might not be comfortable doing so. Folks that currently are funeral home directors that work in the industry. So this was just a positive statement to insert in the bill to ensure that they understand that if they're running for office or they hold the office, they're not paid full-time, they're not precluded from actually working in their day job. That makes them suitable to be a coroner in a small county.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Rep. Richardson, for the amendment, and I understand where you're coming from on that. I would like to point out that our amendment and our bill does not preclude them in any way from being a coroner and actually being paid. They can fulfill the office. What it is is a full transparency bill. The electorate should know or your county member should know. And then they can take that under advisement as they will.

So just a quick question. Now, this, of course, does not change the fact that they would have to disclose, right?

No, it does not change anything that's in the bill. it's just a positive reinforcing statement that they can continue to work in their in their day job if this is the area they work in since the bill originally did um i won't say target it did encompass all the other elected officials in the county and then was drawn back to simply focus on coroners there was a little concern that that that there might be folks saying that you shouldn't be running for coroner if you work in this field.

Brooks. Yes.

Wynn. No.

Phillips. No.

Zucla. Yes.

Weinberg. Yes.

Froelich. Chair Stewart.

Representative Martinez. Keep it short and simple. This is a good governance bill, a good transparency bill, a good bill. Vote yes.

Representative Paschal. I move Senate Bill 105 as amended to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation.

Representatives Basin-Arker.

Yes. Lindsay.

Yes. Pascal.

Yes. Richardson.

Yes. Velasco.

Yes. Wilford.

Excused. Chair Stewart.

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee. This bill is fairly simple, I would imagine. We will go through a few different pieces of the section. I will start by saying that where most of this comes from is looking at where Colorado lives in relationship to other states with fatalities on our roadways. As someone who has certainly been involved with, for lack of a better term, scraping some people up off of the roadway, I get a little bit more engaged in this conversation than some would like, I would imagine. So if you have questions, I can talk to you about that. But I've had some experience here that I want you to know that when a state trooper pulls you over for speeding, especially egregious speeding or overtaking incorrectly or, you know, even failure to yield, something like that, what is very often going through their mind in that moment is some visualization of someone who failed at that thing And it doesn take very long for a police officer in almost any policing profession to get that experience I know that it easy for many of us who have a heavy foot especially here in the front range when you're driving on I-25, et cetera, and you're used to a little bit more urban riding and maybe some straightaways, when you happen to find some moment around here when we don't have a lot of traffic and you can speed, that it seems like an easy thing. And I want you to know that almost nothing that I'm talking about in this bill is that. What we're aiming this bill at are for people that are egregiously speeding. And I will have an amendment that clarifies something on one of the standards in this bill that makes sure that what we know is that we're engaging with miles per hour of 15 or more over in certain instances. or we're not looking for people that are doing 76 miles an hour necessarily. We're not looking for people that are engaged in a speeding violation that is not safe, except for we're talking about something that is an egregious unsafe. And I'll invite you to ask me questions about that. If you don't understand what I mean, I just want to make sure that you know that what we're aiming at here are what we have identified to be the most fatal crashes, and especially the 100-mile-an-hour endeavors, those are serious. I don't know how many of you have ever ridden in a car over 100 miles an hour. I assert that at one point in time in your life or another, you have tried it. I know when I was a teenager in my 1992 Ford Ranger, it wouldn't quite do it, but it almost got there. I have since been in a vehicle that travels greater than that speed more times than I like, and I can tell you that there is a major difference, major, major, major difference in how you operate a vehicle at 85 miles an hour versus 100 miles an hour. When you are traveling 100 miles an hour, you are crossing football fields a second. the input on the steering wheel is completely different at that speed and greater than it is even at 75 or 85 the ability for traction on the roadway is significantly different the brakes on most motor vehicles are designed where they can stop but you are now dealing with a stopping distance that is akin to a train as opposed to what you expect a car to stop at those at those speeds but the most important things is our cars are just not designed to handle a crash at the that speed. Most people don't average 75 miles an hour on a roadway, even if you're traveling a long distance. Usually there's other traffic, there's other cars that slow you down. Typically that is the case. What we are talking about people are people that routinely go over that. And I have a lot of conversations with my colleagues about do increased penalties, reduce crime, and we have a lot of evidence that indicates that that's not the case. That is the reason that one of the things in this bill does is, in addition to the penalties, which are mainly points on the licenses here, which are a way for us to take someone that violates this over and over and over, it gives us a faster opportunity to take their driving privileges away. But more importantly, and something that I appreciate about this bill is if you do this more than once, or if you do this several times, then the biggest differentiator here is we're going to have you actually go in and see the judge about it. So rather than just getting a ticket and being able to treat it like some people do, I know in Morrison they used to complain all the time about even though they had things set at 15 miles per hour or over, people just treated it like they could just go ahead and pay the 85 bucks and drive whatever speed they wanted and it didn't really seem to slow anyone down. What we're trying to do here is actually impact the behavior. and I know most people when they're speeding don't think that they're going to get caught. What I do hope that we can do is get someone and enough people to start waking up to that we have over 700 people that died on our roadways in Colorado last year. This is not Texas where we have long flat roadways. We do in some parts of the state. That is not typical in most parts of our state. In Texas, they also don't have rocks that can fall into the roadway that you can't be prepared for. Our interstates even go up and down and side to side very much more than many other states, while we do continue to maintain a speed limit on those of 75 miles an hour. um we are engaging here as a matter of law with what we have identified to be the most fatal of accidents the things that cause us to have the worst telephone calls uh and visits with families that they will ever experience in their life the things that end up with wreaths on the side of roadways and the things that everybody thinks can't happen to them until it does um and i want you to have the opportunity to ask questions to somebody that has seen it firsthand and had to do all of those things if you've got real questions about it. I'm committed to what's in this bill. Another thing that I'll let you know is with this amendment changing, making sure that we get the standards, I'm not aware of any opposition from any group, including the ACLU, the Freedom Fund, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, on what we have before here. So I hope that we have presented to you today good and well-thought legislation. This passed the Senate on a 33 to 2 vote. I would like to do better than that in the House of Representatives, and I look forward to your questions.

very simple. So there's a standard in here that is reasonable or prudent that you'll see in two sections of the bill. It says reasonable or prudent speed or speeds in excess of 75 miles an hour. Reasonable and prudent is defined in 425.1101 subsection 4, I believe, 424.1101 subsection 4. Reasonable and prudent is something that is – it requires some mitigating factors, and they have to give prima facie evidence that something existed beyond the posted speed limits. Let's say, for instance, it was icy conditions or there were children present or something unique for a police officer to be able to charge you with the crime of exceeding a reasonable and prudent speed. There has to be something that is presented as evidence in that case that says, We know that the speed limit was posted for 75 miles an hour, but there were rocks in the roadway, and there were two state troopers parked on the side of the road in front of it. Probably should have slowed down, if that makes sense. This amendment will kind of make a second standard for that as it relates to this bill where we talking about subsequent growing penalties based on repeat offenses here where we saying that it would be a minimum of 15 miles per hour or more greater than a reasonable or prudent speed So we want you to know that what we're talking about is a matter of this. We call the super speeder bill. We want this thing and these punitive things are the things that we think in almost any of these cases should a wreck occur. What we're talking about here is something where we expect that you would have caused serious bodily injury or death had you been involved in a collision, whether that be the trooper standing on the side of the road or you in your vehicle, should you have exerted these speeds. First time you do it, you get the same ticket that you get today. Second time you do it, you're going to go see a judge, and we're going to increase more points. And if you keep doing it, then we really need to see you, and we may tell you that you need to stop driving for some period of time. And that is the nucks and crux of the entire bill.

brings everyone to, I am not aware of any opposition whatsoever on this bill at this moment.

I think that's an excellent question, and we pondered that. In fact, this bill specifically addresses it. So the education piece really is you have to come talk to a judge. That's the differentiator here. You don't get to just pay the ticket and move on about your life. You actually have some opportunity to get counseled here. And I don't really want to do that to people because, you know, as a good Democrat, I am concerned about people that then have to come to court. Fortunately, our courts in this state are very good. But if you get a ticket and for some reason you can't make a court date, as long as you were in communication with that court, I don't hear really ever any grumblings about courts being punitive about you showing up as long as you're in communication with them. They're reasonable about making sure that you have access to a speedy trial and that you have access to that. But sort of the straight answer to your question is all of the states that we see that are doing better than us, that seems to be the component that works. It's not so much the financial penalties, which some states right now are toying with having financial penalties that are more in line with how much money you make, for instance. Because a $100 fine to someone who is barely making ends meet and not paying rent, that is a very punitive punishment for something that is a small crime. But to somebody that makes a lot of money, that's easily a cost of doing business or just something that is just not even thought of We not really addressing that in this bill What I am addressing quite specifically is that what we are trying to do is curb your behavior We are trying to educate you and the best way that we know to do that is that if you do this one time like some people might I don't know many of you that have gotten multiple speeding tickets. I can say I have not. I have not gotten speeding tickets. It does not mean that I don't sometimes speed. but I think that I typically observe a reasonable and prudent speed. I was laughing with the chair of this committee earlier today. I doubt she's ever sped. It's just not her MO. So she's not going to have a lot of experience with multiple violations above 100 miles an hour or multiple violations above 75 miles per hour that are egregious. Now, I will also say, and I don't want you to take this as law because it's not law. The law is that if you speed, 76 miles per hour is against the law. I don't know a police officer that writes a ticket for that. I don't want to say where I think the limit might be for most people, but I would say that it's a good rule of thumb that if you're going 15 miles an hour or more and a police officer sees you and observes that speed, it is more likely than not that they will attempt to stop you from driving that quickly. Below that, you're rolling the dice, but probably not going to get their attention quite as much. Police officers are not out to be punitive necessarily. What we are looking at here is to curb behavior. I have looked every way I can at how we might be able to start to impact this thing from a level of fatality. and this is the only thing that I have found that other states have that we don't that I think would work and I'm going to be quite honest with you I if we were talking about reducing penalties as far as the financial burdens are concerned you know I would probably be interested in some of this conversation someday I don't think that's it I think this bringing you to court is the piece

I love that question, so let's talk about it. So we've got a slow-moving tractor going around the curve in a double yellow line. We're dialoguing. Pass or no pass?

But the moment that you ease across those lines, you have now taken multiple people's lives into your hand, and it is no pass. I don't wish that anybody on this committee gets the images that most police officers have in those situations. But I just want you to know no family should ever have to deal with whether or not you decided to pass a tractor. If it's a double yellow line, we're saying don't. In fact this bill literally tells the Department of Transportation in some of those areas we want you to put more signage Please do a better job because this is something that we identified that kills you more than speeding on R25 going home I appreciate that.

and the younger drivers are, I hate to just generalize, but I think that younger drivers are probably more apt to be a little bit heavy with the accelerator. But they have a lesser threshold of flexibility points to be able to work with.

Sure. I mean, younger drivers we already recognize are more risk-averse in these areas. That's the reason that the penalties for them are less. Not only that, their experience on the roadways, et cetera. Your question was disproportionately. I don't believe so. Here's what I'll say about a driver that is 16 or 17 years old that is caught at a speed of excess of 100 miles per hour. That normally gets both their parents' attention in a great big way, their insurance company's attention in a great big way. Most of those events become learning experiences that we trust and hope that they will not happen again. And if they do, you are literally playing with death. And I don't know a parent that doesn't want us to make sure that we are doing everything we can to keep their children alive while they're still learning to drive.

Representative Clifford. Yes, I will respond to all of those things. Representative. So the mandatory, I'll address them hopefully in order. If I miss something, we'll have to come back and get some clarification. The mandatory piece, the way courts work, as you well know, is it's not – courts can do what they do with a traffic ticket. If you have a speeding violation of 25 miles an hour or over and the court thinks that there were mitigating circumstances and they're willing to work with the prosecutor, they could reduce that to a non-moving violation and have that be a broken windshield. Completely legal, not a problem. The problem that it does is when you've got these subsequent things and we're trying to have something that now is a stacking event where you have been doing a super speeder event multiple times, if they've done that, then what shows up in the system and what remains true is what the conviction is, not the charge. So we have to be responsible for, in order to actually have some mitigation here in this particular area, which we're trying to really kind of define as a super speeder, that we're addressing that we be able to use the future events. Now, you're right about 270th and 84th. This is not going to fix that issue. I don disagree with you that that is something that we should probably look at and address Within the budget for signage really is CDOT gets you know they build their budgets for what they're going to have to do to maintain both the roadway, the reflectors on the road, the paint, the striping, any cracks that need to be repaired, et cetera. We're not telling them that they need to go out and put up a bunch of new signs, but when they're working on an area of a highway that needs additional signage, we're telling them we would like for them to prioritize this signage that could make a difference and making sure that people know that this is a really unsafe area for you to cross over into the oncoming lane of traffic. We'd like to see more signage for that type of thing. Um, you ask a question about, um, oh, the illegal overtaking. That is not just a rural issue, um, but it is. We're talking about now you're in the wrong lane of traffic where the predictable outcome is that you would meet another vehicle that is also traveling at highway speeds. And an 85-mile-an-hour car plus an 85-mile-an-hour car is a, what is that, 170-mile-an-hour crash. Those are much more fatal than if you just waited until you got to a place that was safe to pass. Those are particularly bad, and we have situations in Colorado where we really are aiming to get at curbing behavior there. We want you to know that you should not do that. Now, with regards to this whole thing, keep in mind that most people, and I don't know the statistic on that, but I don't know a lot of people. I know a lot of people who have never gotten a speeding ticket in their life, or if they did get one, they got one. And I think that if you polled almost everybody across the street, that would be the case. You don't have a whole lot of people that have gotten a whole lot of speeding tickets. It's typically one of those things where even that gets the normal person's reaction. And what we're trying to engage here is people that keep pushing the envelope and keep testing those limits. And we want that to ratchet up so that you are engaged with that. Now, one of your other questions was about the points. It is, you make it sound easy to get violations that exceed 12 points in a single event. That is basically you are both speeding and in the wrong lane of traffic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, like what you did to earn that. And then to get a judge to agree that you should lose your license and your very first offense on something like that probably had some mitigating factors because judges are typically sympathetic for first-time offenders. They're not trying to throw the book at someone or take their license away, et cetera. When you are dealing with a judge that's doing something like that, they think that you have really messed up. Even people that have had instances where that was available to them because of the tickets that were written, I doubt you will find very many people that were not involved in a very egregious act that came out of justice having had that result, I guess would be the fair way to say it. I hope that I answered everything that you asked representative Phillips last

Representative Phillips, last follow-up question. Then we've got Rep Sucla, and then we've got Rep Paschal.

Rep Clifford, yes or no?

Representative Sucla.

Representative Clifford.

Representative Paschal.

Correct.

Oh, Rep Clifford.

That was Rep Clifford.

I am sorry.

All right. Are there any other questions for the bill sponsor? All right. Fantastic. Thank you so much. We will go ahead and bring up. We have two panels today. They are all in support. I'm going to bring up Claire Levy. I'm going to bring up Iris Houck, Skylar McKinley, Austin Wingate, and Brett Schrodelin. all righty and I know that former representative Levy has a time commitment so we're going to go ahead and let you go first state your name who you represent you've got three minutes Yes, good afternoon, committee chair and members of the committee and the sponsors, and thank you for accommodating my scheduling conflict, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.

and stay online. So let's go ahead and go to Brett Schrotland. Go ahead and introduce yourself, who you represent. You've got three minutes. You are muted if you could unmute. My apologies. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Brett Schroetland. I'm the sheriff in Grand County, Colorado. I'm also

online and go to Austin Wingate. Go ahead and introduce yourself, who you represent. You've got three minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Austin Wingate. I'm

of Colorado Boulder. I'm here today to provide an economic analysis of Senate Bill 26-035. This bill increases penalties for certain dangerous driving behaviors in Colorado. The bill's main focus is on illegal passing and no passing zones and repeat speeding offenses. It increases license points for illegal passing and introduces escalating penalties for repeat speeding violations. In addition, it directs the Colorado Department of Transportation to prioritize signage in areas where there is frequent illegal passing. The bill also strengthens enforcement by making certain penalties mandatory and by more precisely targeting high-risk roadways using crash data. The goal of these changes is to reduce serious collisions and fatalities on Colorado roads. From an economic perspective, speeding and illegal passing create negative externalities. Drivers who engage in these behaviors receive a private benefit, usually saving time or reaching their destination more quickly. However, the risks and costs created by these decisions are imposed on others. Traffic collisions generate significant public costs. Emergency response, medical treatment, law enforcement, and infrastructure repairs all require public resources. The magnitude of these costs is substantial. Speeding contributes to 29% of traffic fatalities nationwide. Even a one-mile-per-hour increase in speed raises crash risk by roughly 3% to 5%. Illegal passing is also particularly dangerous because it can lead to head-on collisions, which are three to four times more likely to be fatal. In Colorado alone, there have been 720 fatal head-on collisions between 2015 and 2026. The economic costs of these fatalities are also large. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates the value of a statistical life at approximately $13.7 million. These fatalities represent billions of dollars in social loss, illustrating the scale of social harm associated with fatal collisions. Economic theories suggest that individuals compare the expected benefits of violating a rule with the expected costs. If penalties are low or enforcement is unlikely, the expected cost of risky behavior remains small. This bill increases those expected costs. The bill doubles the license points for illegal passing, creates escalating penalties for repeat speeding violations, and requires greater signage in high-risk areas. By also making certain penalties mandatory and increasing consequences for repeat offenders, the bill not only increases the severity of the punishment, but also its certainty. In addition, the bill improves enforcement effectiveness by heightening signage in areas with demonstrated increases in crashes, making interventions more targeted. These changes increase both the severity of punishment and the perceived likelihood of enforcement, which economic research shows can significantly deter risky behavior. The goal of the policy is not to eliminate speeding or illegal passing entirely. Rather, it is to ensure that drivers bear costs that better reflect the risks their actions impose on others. Overall, this bill raises private costs of behaviors that create significant public harm. It should be supported. Thank you for your time.

You've got three minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members of the committee. Skylar McKinley here on behalf of AAA and our 800,000 members and the millions of Coloradans who have a stake in safety on our roadways. If you are sick of seeing me, trust me, you are in good company. How do you think I feel? The core problem that this bill addresses is not just that people speed. We know that people speed. It's that the system as it's currently structured doesn't take it seriously. Nationally, speeding contributes to nearly one-third of all traffic fatalities, which is roughly 11,500 deaths in 2023 alone. That number climbed 21% between 2018 and 2025. Even as overall traffic fatalities declined. In Colorado, speed-related crashes killed 237 people in 2024, surpassing both impaired driving and unbuckled crash jets. Total Colorado fatalities rose again in 2025. So we're moving in the wrong direction, and speeding is a major driver of that. The behavior is normalized because we have allowed it to be. AAA Foundation Research finds that speeding carries the lowest social disapproval of any risky driving behavior that we track. Oh, I'm going a few over. It's no big deal. Everybody does it. Oh, everybody does 90 on I-25. Nearly half of all drivers admit to exceeding the freeway speed limit by 15 miles per hour in the past month. Not five over, 15 over. This is not the fringe anymore. This is the driving culture we have built, and that has changed radically in the last five years. Illegal passing compounds us with a different order of lethality altogether. improper passing was responsible for 684 deaths nationally in 2021. These are head-on collision scenarios. They are almost always fatal. And in the situations where they aren't fatal, they always cause the most serious bodily injuries. The current four-point reality for this offense is not commensurate with that reality. An eight-point penalty is. For chronic offenders, the research is unambiguous here. A single citation does not change behavior. The AAA Foundation identifies the most dangerous drivers, those who engage in virtually every dangerous behavior behind the wheel, as a persistent population that clearly does not respond to routine enforcement. Escalating consequences are designed precisely for these most dangerous drivers. That's what we're talking about here. And we're not breaking new ground with this law. Massachusetts suspends licenses after three speeding tickets in 12 months. California mandates court appearances and escalating fines for repeat violations. and multiple states have moved toward treating chronic speeding as something more than a financial transaction. With this bill, Colorado catches up to what much of the country already recognizes, which is that speeding isn't a privilege that wealthy people can just pay their way out of when they create this public safety risk. The deterrence literature, if you want to get into that, is clear that the certainty of consequence matters as much as severity. For a repeat speeder, knowing that the next violation means a mandatory court appearance, not a check in the mail is itself a deterrent on its own. At the time, the inconvenience, the formal proceedings, and so on, those actually do deter folks from speeding. So with that, I'll take any questions, and I encourage a yes vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. And thank you in particular to our sponsors for being forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Tamara Pogue. I serve on the Summit County Board of County Commissioners, and I'm here today to testify as the Chair of Counties and Commissioners Acting Together, or CCAT, to testify in support of SB35. CCAT works to bring a unified county voice to the Capitol to build opportunity equity and sustainability for our communities I particularly want to thank the sponsors for bringing forward this thoughtful legislation which I believe is reflective of many of the problems that counties across the state are facing in regards to this issue. Colorado has experienced a concerning rise in traffic fatalities in recent years, and counties see the impacts firsthand. In Summit County and in other counties across the state, we manage long stretches of two-lane highways, which are marked by solid yellow lines for good reasons. These roads wind through canyons, over mountain passes, and along high-speed corridors where visibility is limited and traffic volumes can fluctuate dramatically. On stretches of road between Summit and Grand County, as you've heard, this past year proved especially deadly, with more tragedies than I can count on highways 9 and 40. For rural mountain and resort communities, a single head-on collision can shut down a corridor for hours, delaying emergency response, disrupting commerce and tourism, and straining local resources. But most importantly, these crashes devastate families and communities. Illegal passing in a no passing zone is not a minor infraction. It is one of the most dangerous maneuvers a driver can make. Increasing the point penalty from four to eight points and making the $100 penalty mandatory appropriately reflects the seriousness of the offense and adds desperately needed consequences to actions which can have such devastating impacts. The bill addresses repeat speeding offenses with escalating consequences. When drivers repeatedly exceed safe speeds, that reflects a pattern of high-risk behavior. Requiring court appearances for those who meet repeat thresholds rather than allowing a simple mail-in penalty increases accountability and reinforces that these behaviors put lives at risk. The bill focuses on the most dangerous behaviors, provides clarity for enforcement, strengthens accountability for repeat offender, and aims to reduce preventable crashes and save lives. On behalf of CCAT, I respectfully urge your support. Thank you again for your time and attention. I'm happy to answer any questions.

who you represent. You've got three minutes. Hello, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Jacqueline Claudia. I'm the Executive Director of The White Line, a Colorado nonprofit founded to honor Magnus White, a 17-year-old Team USA cyclist who was killed on our roads on July 29, 2023. Magnus didn't die in an accident. A driver made a choice, and Magnus paid for it with his life. That distinction is exactly why we're here today. When we talk about speeding, it can sound like a policy abstraction. It is not. Speed determines whether someone survives. The physics are unforgiving. As speed increases, stopping distance grows, reaction time shrinks, and the force of impact multiplies. For a pedestrian or a cyclist, someone without a steel frame or airbags to protect them, even a small increase in speed dramatically increases the likelihood of death. In 2024, speeding claimed 237 lives in Colorado. Many of those were simply vulnerable road users, people walking, biking, or simply just trying to get home. SB 2635 is focused and practical. The bill creates escalating consequences for repeat speeding violations, additional points for second, third, and subsequent offenses. It requires repeat offenders to appear in court rather than mailing in a fine and just moving on. That shift matters. When someone repeatedly chooses to drive at dangerous speeds, it's no longer a one-time mistake. It's a pattern of high-risk behavior. For vulnerable road users, that pattern can be deadly The bill also strengthens penalties for illegal passing and no passing zones a behavior that often accompanies excessive speed and puts cyclists directly in harm way At the White Line we believe in accountability and we believe accountability is prevention. Clear standards are prevention. Data-driven consequences are prevention. Magnus should still be here. His family should not have to carry this loss. SB 2635 won't bring him back, but it can protect the next cyclist on Colorado's shoulder. It can protect the pedestrian in a crosswalk. It can interrupt dangerous behaviors before it becomes another family's tragedy. So on behalf of the white line and the families we represent, I ask you for your yes vote on SB 2635. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity for allowing me to speak today. My name is Jocelyn Reimer. I'm the Director of Victim Services for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. As a victim advocate, I work with families whose loved ones have been killed by dangerous drivers every day. And every day, that work puts me in the room with someone navigating the worst grief of their lives. I am here today in strong support of Senate Bill 26035. MAD was founded to end drunk and drugged driving, but the families we serve know a broader truth. Dangerous driving behaviors often go together. Speeding and impairment, reckless passing and reckless choices. A driver who pushes far past the speed limit again and again or crosses the double yellow line into oncoming traffic is making a choice, one that puts every other person on that road at risk. In 2024, speeding claimed 237 lives in Colorado. That's just in one single year. That is nearly five people every single week. Those are not statistics. Those are parents, children, siblings, and friends. As the sheriff mentioned earlier, those are people in our own communities. And for every one of these families, life is now divided into the before and the after. The question we hear most often from the families we serve is always the same. Could this have been prevented? And for too many crashes, the answer is yes, if there had been greater accountability for the driver's prior behavior. Senate Bill 26035 is about exactly that. For repeat speeders, this bill means escalating point penalties and a mandatory court appearance, not a fine mailed in and forgotten. Crossing a double yellow line in a no passing zone carries stiffer consequences. Those collisions are head on and among the most deadly on any road. And CDOT would be directed to target safety signage to high crash corridors identified through statewide crash data, targeted, practical, and overdue. From where I sit, the court requirement matters. A mailed fine is background noise to a driver who has already chosen to speed repeatedly. Standing before a judge is different. We are saying we see this pattern and we are naming it. For the families I work with, who often feel unseen by the process that moves on too quickly, that recognition matters. The families I sit with have lived that worst day. They have navigated grief and unfamiliar legal processes at the same time, often wondering whether the system truly understood what was at stake. What they want and what they deserve is accountability, not only after a fatal crash, but before one happens. This bill helps change that. Senate Bill 26035 strengthens accountability where we know the risk is highest. On behalf of the victims and survivors MADD represents, I respectfully urge you to support this bill. Thank you.

Go ahead and introduce yourself and you got three minutes Thank you Madam Chair My name is Brandon Nathlich I a captain with the Colorado State Patrol and I serve as our legislative liaison I want to thank Representative Clifford for sponsoring this legislation. State Patrol is in strong support of this legislation as speeding and proper overtaking on the left are both issues that we take very seriously when both of these present unnecessary dangers to the motoring public. Speeding, according to CSP data, is one of the top three reasons why people crash in the state of Colorado. For reference, in the last five years, speed has been the proximate cause of over 18,000 crashes. In 2025 alone, speeding was responsible for 31 crashes, or fatal crashes, 151 crashes where SBI occurred, and 334 injury crashes, and over 2,400 property damage crashes. All of these crashes are avoidable by simply slowing down and obeying posted speed limits. In 2025, we issued over 43,000 total speeding citations as a Colorado State Patrol. 459 of those were to individuals traveling in excess of 40 miles per hour over the posted speed limit. And as far as improper overtaking on the left, in the last three years, CSP has written 376 citations. and over the last five years, CSP averaged investigating 456 crashes where the reason for the crash was improper overtaking on the left. In the last five years, on average, improper passing on the left is the cause of seven fatalities per year and 23 serious bodily injuries. Again, there's no reason to pass another vehicle when it's legal to do so. And another portion of the bill that we got an amendment on and why we're in support of this is to raise fines on unauthorized hazardous materials routes for CMVs that have hazmat placards and are taking an unauthorized route. And the trucking industry is on board with our increase there. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you for considering to support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To the gentleman from CSP, first of all, thank you so much for your work, and we appreciate you very much. In this bill, I love the part about going over 100. I worry about, you know, we need more police. You know, I represent Thornton, and so we're on a constant, you know, we need more enforcement, need more enforcement. So that's not about the ticket, that's just about can we just get more police. My question for you is two things. The first one is I'm assuming that you go to court. Do you go to court, to traffic court? Are you in traffic court or at some point have you been in traffic court? Okay. So I'm wondering if you see in traffic court, do you see different outcomes in different court? Meaning, you know, I think you're mostly in municipal if you're in traffic court. And so, like, if you're in one municipal court for somebody speeding and the same offense in a different court, have you ever seen different outcomes meaning you know somebody's gonna just have a something's gonna get dropped right to defective headlight or or the contrary somebody's gonna with this new law you know somebody's taking a very big penalty that's my first question the second question is also in court if you ever see an over representation of drivers of color so two things do you ever see an over of drivers of color in court. And the second part is, do you ever see different outcomes for the same offense in different courts?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Rep. Phillips, for the question. I'll try to take an answer because, right, we're the charging authority as the state patrol or a police officer, right? So from a state trooper standpoint, I don't go to municipal court. I go to county court and I deal at a county magistrate level. However, that's typically at the court level as far as a decision on pleas, et cetera, right? And it's up to the magistrate. So we don't have any control over that necessarily. And to be honest, in my career, I don't think I went to traffic court very often. Most people do, in my experience, pay the penalty assessment, right? And they take the point reduction and they go about their day. As far as a racial disparity, I don't know that I have the answer to that in my experience. I would like to take an opportunity to address some of the other comments. I did a quick Google search and I found a 2016 article that maybe you referenced. where CSP, there was an article on CSP, and that was in 2016 is my understanding. I just learned of that today. But we were also one of the first agencies to start recording your race and ethnicity on all of these citations, right? So now we have that very robust information, and I am happy to get you our demographics on any traffic infraction you'd like to know about. In this case, I imagine speeding. So I'm happy to provide that to you.

Madam Chair, I do have amendments.

Would you like to pass?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Amendment 5 just makes sure that we are identifying, as I said earlier, as it relates to this standard that we're talking about.

The reasonable and prudent speed standard.

we talking about 15 or more miles per hour in excess of what would be reasonable imprudence So to a police officer now the mitigating factor is they would have to have to explain what caused this to be a reasonable and prudent standard

And I request an aye vote.

I don't know what that meant. Okay, I move L005 to SB035.

i talk very slow and southern so that we can give the people the time to come across the street

things in my closing. So I want to direct you to the fiscal note that exists for this and let you know that there is a fiscal note for $14,234 to make programmatic changes. This is in relation to a cash fund exists. So this fiscal note is giving them spending authority to make this change. It's not something where we're appropriating new money. The money exists. They just have the authorization to spend it out of this fund, and that is what that is. But there is also very good information on page three in the fiscal note where I had missed it that they had put the demographics for the racial breakdowns of these persons convicted. And if you would like to take a look, this is related to 2022 and 23 to 24 and 25. it breaks down to 76,229 individuals who have been convicted and sentenced for this offense. Of the persons convicted, 54,022 were male, 21,865 were female, and 342 did not have a gender identified. Demographically, 6,561 were white, 5,680 were black African American, 6,059 were Hispanic, 1,360 were Asian, 403 were American Indian, and 1,357 were classified as other, and 809 did not have a race identified. I don't know if the racial disparity conversation, again, I want to say something about that coming up. When you see a speeding vehicle or when you have a vehicle that you are about to stop for one of these offenses, The driver of that vehicle is not readily apparent to the officer very often until after they're standing next to the car or at least very close. Often when you're stopping somebody for a super speed, there is absolutely no knowledge of who is sitting in that car or even how many people are in that car, et cetera, when that determination to stop that car is made. So I have said on other bills and I remain on this one, I don't know from this stage in this bill how I impact that area. and I'm supportive of measures that might, but I don't think that this is it. And I don I have not personally seen outcomes personally that were inconsistent with what I described today I will say just in closing I looked at this a lot I wasn't the original author of this bill. I was involved after it got started. I wholeheartedly believe that this is a useful tool for our community that will save lives. And I'm judicious very often when I am looking at this type of legislation to make sure that that is what I'm looking at is safety for our community. I don't intend to be unfriendly to any set of populations, but I do want more parents to not have to have some of the conversations. And I do want more law enforcement officers to not have to see bodies in this configuration. because somebody thought that this one time it's okay if I pass on a double yellow line in a curve or even pass the tractor in the mile away. You know, if that causes a head-on collision, it's serious. What we are talking about in this bill are the things that we've identified that kill people the most, and that's what we're aiming at right here. And I have given it my best shot, and I don't have a better shot. So that is what I will say in closing. Thank you.

Thank you. I move Senate Bill 35 as amended with a favorable recommendation to Appropriations.

Sure. Thank you. I very much appreciate. First of all, thank you for your service in law enforcement. And for those that testified today as well, apologies to you and to them for what you've had to see. Those are, you know, that's just, it's traumatic and awful. and I do appreciate your service to the communities that you serve for doing that and for dealing with that. And in many ways, I agree with you. You know, there is just such an arrogance and an entitlement that we all see every day on the roads. And that's something that bothers me, particularly now that I'm old and drive slow. You know, I'm usually in a three lane at three under. and I let everybody else kind of light their hair on fire and go about their business, thinking they're going to get somewhere faster, and I will go in the speed limit. That being said, as much as I believe that you're in the right spot and doing the right things, there are parts of this that I have concerns about that I can't support at this point. So I'll be a no. I don't even know that I can say no for today.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much, Rep Clifford, for bringing this proposal. So I do commend you for doing really a good job on stake holding and getting all the organizations to neutral and appreciate your amendment that you brought I will be a no on this bill today And I believe that increased penalties do not reduce serious crime and people of color continue to be racially profiled In my rural community, my district is 30% Latino, and I worked as an interpreter in municipal courts and saw firsthand how losing your license and entering the judicial process harms people of color from affecting your immigration case to getting stuck in an unfair system. But really appreciate all the work that you have done.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Rep. Clifford, for bringing the bill. I know in the past you've been strongly opposed to any kind of increased penalties, and I've been in the opposite seats on those issues. I love the part about over 100 miles an hour. That one I really love. And I also appreciate that some of the things that I brought up today that you were accurately clear about, you know, that's not what, you know, this bill isn't going to affect the lanes. And, you know, you can hear the question about overrepresentation of people of color and it's like that's not what this bill is for. So I feel like there's part of it that I can get with. I do not love the mandatory piece, and I'm on the fence about this one at this point, but I do appreciate you bringing anything for us regarding those big-time speeders over 100 miles an hour.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Rep. Clifford. I know this has already passed the point, but I just thought of it. I know that you can't with the video cameras that there's a cap on the fine, but I'm not for sure if there's a cap on the point system. Okay. That's all I have to say.

Representatives Bay Snicker.

Brooks.

Lindsay.

Wynn.

Haskell.

Phillips.

Phillips.

I said Phillips.

I will do a, I'm going to do a yes for now.

That was a Phillips, yes.

Yes.

No.

No.

No.

Yes.

Yes.