"I got a Notice of Civil Penalty and it said that I had committed a safety violation by weaving in and out of the toll lane on C470," Josh Bowlin, a trial lawyer, said.
Despite paying the actual toll, he was still penalized for how he entered the lane.
Bowlin decided to challenge the ticket after reviewing the statute that the Colorado Transportation Investment Office (CTIO), a division of the Colorado Department of Transportation, was citing.
"It was called a safety violation," he said. "But you look up the statute that the tolling authority was citing, and it says that they can issue a civil penalty for toll evasion, and I thought to myself, well, I wasn't trying to avoid paying the toll."
In the first nine months of toll lane weaving enforcement, CTIO issued more than $40 million in citations to drivers accused of crossing double white lines, to cross into a toll lane or entering or exiting a lane outside of a marked entrance or exit.
To fight their tickets, drivers, without any formal legal training, have to file a lawsuit against the state – serving a summons to the Attorney General’s office, finding witnesses, submitting evidence and navigating a range of pre-trial hearings.
“They have to go to court and initiate the lawsuit and figure out how to bring the tolling authority into the court system, which is difficult.”
His legal training and 15 years as a trial lawyer were useful arguing his case in a February trial that lasted for about four hours. During that hearing, an attorney from the state questioned Bowlin on the stand and called several witnesses from CTIO and the companies that run the toll lane enforcement program. Bowlin didn’t call any witnesses and instead argued the law – that the citation sent cites a statute on toll evasion, which he argued he didn’t break.
After a month of deliberating, the judge ultimately ruled in Bowlin's favor.
"The judge eventually held even if entering across that lane might be some kind of traffic infraction that you might be able to get pulled over by a sheriff's deputy or something like that, that it wasn't the kind of thing that the tolling authority could just send this notice of civil penalty out and collect $75 for," he said.
CTIO, a division of the Colorado Department of Transportation, stated they "will continue to operate the program as we have in the past." (because the State made 40 million dollars with this program already, in just 9 months)
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