Here is the plain truth. Weld County did not spend years and millions building out County Road 49 so a couple of towns could set up speed cameras and milk residents on the very highway those residents paid for. I get that budgets are tight and inflation is real. I get that services cost money. I do not get the part where a municipality treats a county highway like an ATM and calls it safety. That is not safety. That is a revenue habit with a radar gun.
Let’s start with the law. Colorado’s automated vehicle identification system rules, the photo speed and red light camera statute, are right there in black and white. If a speeding violation is captured by a camera, the maximum civil penalty is forty dollars, or eighty in a school zone. No points. No secret escalators because the driver was twenty five over. The number is forty, doubled only in school zones. Read C.R.S. 42-4-110.5 for yourself. If you want to hit someone for three hundred forty bucks, you do it the old fashioned way with an officer, a summons, and points. You do not slap a bigger number on a mailed photo ticket and pretend the cap disappeared.
Now look at Kersey’s own ordinance. In March, the Board passed Ordinance 2025-0002. It mirrors the state law, including the same forty dollar cap, and it designates pieces of CR 49 and Weld County Parkway as an AVIS corridor with the usual warning signs and reporting requirements. It even bans per-ticket vendor compensation, which is also in state law. In other words, the local code copies the state guardrails. Then the practice on the ground ignored them. As 9NEWS reported on November 16, 2025, Kersey has been issuing three hundred forty dollar camera tickets to people clocked at twenty five or more over. That is not a close call. That is a faceplant next to a statute book.
Hudson has its own AVIS ordinance as well, and it also points at CR 49 as a corridor with the same caps and requirements. Nobody gets to say they did not know the rules. The rules are written in their own ordinances. The math is simple even for government. Cap equals forty, or eighty in school zones, and seventy five for red-light violations. Anything more using cameras breaks the rules those towns adopted.
Why does this matter to Weld County? Because the Weld County Highway, County Road 49, has a special legal status. Under C.R.S. 43-2-110(1.5), Weld designated CR 49 as a primary county road. When a town annexes a piece of it, the town handles enforcement within its limits, but the county still controls the traffic control devices, the signs, the striping, and the right-of-way details. That matters here because photo enforcement comes with warning signs, permanent signs before the corridor, and hardware sitting in the right-of-way. None of that should appear on a county highway without the county in the loop. We are not potted plants while someone bolts a money cannon to our roadway and tells drivers it is for their own good.
This is where I am at. I am angry because our residents are getting milked on a road they paid for, and the legal guardrails are being treated like decorations. I am also determined to be fair. I do not believe the elected boards in Kersey or Hudson woke up and said let’s break the law. What I see smells like a vendor pitch that promised a convenient workaround. Relabel the big tickets as something other than AVIS, keep them camera only, avoid points, but charge the higher amounts. That is not how the statute works. AVIS rules apply when a camera is doing the catching. If you want more than forty, do real enforcement the proper way.
Fairness requires a steelman, so here it is. Speeding on CR 49 is real. It is a major corridor with heavy traffic, and it deserves serious enforcement. Cameras can help in school zones, around parks, and in proven high-risk stretches. The tools are legal when used legally. But when towns rely on cameras because they are easy and then blow through caps because the big numbers look tasty, they stop doing safety and start doing extraction. People notice. Trust collapses. And yes, a coffee shop will start running Speed Trap Latte Day. That is not the civic pride anyone wants.
Bottom line. Speeding is bad. So is milking the public on a road they built. Weld County will enforce the law on our side of the fence, and I will push our municipal partners to do the same on theirs.
Simple rules, same for everyone. Follow the statute, honor your own ordinance, and stop treating drivers like a piggy bank on CR 49. I will keep you posted on progress. The days of photo radar jackpotting Weld County drivers are numbered.
References for readers who want to check me. C.R.S. 42-4-110.5 governs automated systems and sets the caps. C.R.S. 43-2-110(1.5) sets county and municipal responsibilities on the Weld County Highway. Kersey Ordinance 2025-0002 copies the caps and lists CR 49 as a corridor. Hudson’s ordinance and FAQs point to the same caps. See the 9NEWS report from November 16, 2025 for the three hundred forty dollar camera tickets claim. If you read those and think I missed something, email me. I am all ears, and I am all in on fixing this.
Crs says permanent photo enforcement signs, not temp ones that can be removed and deny the person your taking a picture of the ability to defend oneself but sending them a ticket 30+days later from someone in Arkansas. The sign must be placed within a certain distance from the camera. Crossing state lines under the color of law can bring some serious heat if this is done illegally.
The 45 mph sign is bent from the traffic so as to conceal the 45 zone. The law also states that you have to have picture of driver; impossible from behind that fence where Google took the pictures in Sep. The fine is listed as a violation of Ordinance. Is the driver supposed to pickup his phone and research an ordinance of a town when you get fined in Colorado for having your phone in hand. The ordinance could be written to fine all black cars for all we know. How is someone in Arkansas accessing Colorado dmv? Is the ordinance legal if it is unsigned?
Where is the permit that the CRS says has to be approved by state in order to operate? Why does kersey website lead you to CRS that is different than ordinance? Why does the suspected citation come from another state? Why is the readout so small you can’t read it? Is the badge number the certifies the ticket speed from Colorado or Arkansas? Do they have jurisdiction? Too many scams nowadays and too easy to threaten someone to pay fines that cannot be fought against and only one sided; especially a month later!
Just got a ticket on Friday Nov. 14th, I have until Dec. 3 to pay or not. They captured my vehicle Oct. 18th. Didn’t really give me much time. I think the Kersey Police Chief needs his hand slapped for not following his own city’s ordinance. He’s making up rules as we go along. My ticket was for $340, I am not paying that. I will mail a check for $40 and include the Code that they cannot charge me that much.