Del Norte, Colorado Speed Traps

Speed limit drops rapidly from 65 to 30. Town police set up speed traps at both ends of town, with 3 units: one working radar and the other two stopping motorists. Fines are heavy, but don’t try to fight them as you won’t win. If you can bypass this town, by all means do so.

Officer’s car was located under a cottonwood tree and he’s using Lidar. Speed limit is 35 with sparse homes as the city limit is just two blocks more before it becomes Highway 112 and county. Speeds quickly ramps up to 65. We were stopped 1/2 mile within the 65mph zone. Officer claimed I was doing 50 in a 35 (lidar can increase a speed reading if ‘swept’ and since he was not on the roadside this could have happened).

If you go to Del Norte’s government website you can see what they pay their officials. Speeding ticket revenues helps keep their pay high

The 65 MPH speed limit on US160, drops to 30/25 for about a mile through the small town of Del Norte. Since there is a red light in the middle of town where its 25 MPH, that’s not where they setup the trap. They wait til you’re out of town and setup just before the 30 MPH limit goes back up. Its usually on the east side of town, eastbound lane, but I’ve also seen them setup occasionally on the west side of town, going westbound.

Police follow out of town cars to the city limits where the speed limit increases to 50 mph. If you accelerate above 30 mph in sight of the 50 mph sign, they ticket you. You have to be PAST the 50 mph sign BEFORE YOU ACCELERATE. If you can’t appear in court they will handle via mail, but they extort an additional $25 – over the original fine – from you to waive your points on your drivers license if you call and talk to a "Judge", and then extort another $15 for court costs if you talk to the "Judge"…and you have to talk to the "Judge" to waive the points.

The speed limit goes from 30 to 25, and you will be ticketed for 2 miles over the limit.