Colorado’s runaway truck ramps, fixtures for decades, see renewed focus in campaign for highway safety

Story first appeared in:

Traffic passes under the sign for the Lower Straight Creek runaway truck ramp at mile marker 209 on westbound Interstate 70 above Silverthorne on Nov. 27. The ramp, like others on steep mountain descents, are designed to slow down large vehicles quickly in the event of overheated brakes or other mechanical failures. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

On the rising, falling, twisting 90-mile stretch of Interstate 70 from the foothills outside Denver to Vail, truckers can play recorded audio of C.W. McCall — stage name for the late artist who recorded the chart-topping novelty song “Convoy” — talking them through the dangers of Colorado mountain driving.

“Make absolutely sure your brakes are in good shape,” McCall says with the same deep drawl he brought to his 1975 hit that capitalized on the CB radio craze of that era. “If you got a good set of brakes, and a head full of common sense, we can just about guarantee you’re gonna have a safe trip across these big ol’ beautiful Rocky Mountains. Piece of cake.”

The recording, which guides drivers mile marker by mile marker along the interstate, was created as a cassette tape giveaway by the Colorado Motor Carriers Association in 1990, updated to CD in 2006 and remains available on digital files. McCall, known in real life as Bill Fries, a former mayor of the town of Ouray, goes on to warn that the I-70 drive is not for the faint of heart, but “full of steep hills, deep canyons, sharp curves, drop-offs into long, scary downgrades, runaway truck ramps everywhere.” 

For decades these ramps have branched off — and usually sharply upward — from highways, offering last-chance reprieves for mostly out-of-state truckers barreling helplessly downhill thanks to overheated brakes, mechanical failure or unfamiliarity with driving conventions on Colorado’s treacherous slopes. 

Now, they’re getting renewed attention amid a broader campaign, a public-private safety collaboration called “The Mountain Rules.”

“We have more runaway trucks in this state than anywhere else in the country, hands down,” says Greg Fulton, president and CEO of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, one of the partners in the campaign. “When you’re looking at out-of-state drivers, they may only come through here once or twice. It’s trying to get in front of them and say, ‘Hey, you gotta be prepared for this. This is different than probably almost anything else you’ll see out there.’”

There are 13 runaway truck ramps across the state. They stretch from the Mount Vernon ramp on eastbound I-70 near Genesee to eastbound U.S. 141 by Slick Rock near the Utah border. The farthest north covers Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat Springs, while others mark problematic downhills between Ouray and Durango — a stretch McCall no doubt knew well — on U.S. 550 as well as either side of Monarch Pass along U.S. 50.

Farthest south are two emergency ramps on U.S. 160 over Wolf Creek Pass, a particularly dangerous area where, between 2015-19, 47 semi-truck drivers crashed on the west side of the pass, near the scenic overlook area, and three drivers died. From 2019-23, the pass saw 11 total uses of its two ramps, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Perhaps most significantly, in terms of sheer traffic and topography, four ramps dot I-70 between the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel and Vail — part of the corridor targeted by McCall’s downhome trucker narrative. Drivers heading westbound toward Silverthorne have a striking view of two ramps, the second one known as the Lower Straight Creek ramp — the most used in the country (some venture the world)  thanks to a dangerous 5.5 miles of 7% downhill grade.

Runaway trucks drove into Colorado’s 13 ramps, 44 times in 2022. The Lower Straight Creek ramp, shown here, is by far the busiest in the state, stopping 75 trucks in five years. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

Colorado’s runaway truck ramps were used 13 times in 2019, though CDOT suspects that some uses may have gone unrecorded, resulting in what appears to be a statistical outlier in comparison to subsequent years. In 2020, 30 uses were recorded, while 2021 had 32 and 2022 spiked to 44. So far this year, 31 trucks have taken advantage of them.

“What we’ve been trying to do over the past several years is to get higher efficiency on our reporting and make sure that we’re recording this so that we know how often they’re used,” says Keith Stefanik, chief engineer for the Colorado Department of Transportation. 

There’s no charge for barreling up (usually) a steep incline cushioned with deep, loose gravel or sand designed to combine gravity with increased friction to slow massive vehicles to a stop. However, most cases require a towing service to extricate a truck, often a pricey proposition that also triggers notification of the Colorado State Patrol — though the CSP makes a point of not ticketing drivers for taking advantage of the safety feature, for fear of discouraging use.

“We don’t want that to be their mindset of, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to get a ticket if I do this,’” CSP Master Trooper Gary Cutler says.

More concerning are the times drivers, careening down a mountain highway with failing brakes or other malfunctions, fail to employ runaway truck ramps at all — whether out of panic, simple poor judgment or fear of legal or professional repercussions from aborting their commercial route.

“We have had devastating situations when they should have been used and they haven’t been used,” Cutler says. “My personal opinion as a state trooper, I’d rather see them use it as a precaution if they think they’re going to have problems before they get down than to bypass one and say, ‘You know, I probably should have taken that but I didn’t.’”

One of the tragic situations Cutler alludes to also triggered new attention to the ramps and to the larger safety conversation around heavy trucks and mountain driving. In 2019, a Texas driver whose brakes failed as he descended Mount Vernon Canyon on I-70 was responsible for a horrific crash and a 28-vehicle pileup that killed four people and injured six others.

The driver, 25-year-old Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, testified that by the time he lost his brakes he didn’t see the last two signs for the Mount Vernon ramp, and noted that the ramp’s configuration — running downhill and parallel to the interstate instead of branching off uphill — was unfamiliar.

Convicted on four counts of vehicular homicide and nearly two dozen additional charges, Aguilera-Mederos was sentenced to 110 years in prison. Gov. Jared Polis eventually determined that the mandatory sentence was “arbitrary and unjust” and commuted the sentence to 10 years.

The crash — and the missed opportunity to avoid it — refocused the attention of CDOT, the freight industry and others on runaway truck ramps. Stefanik says CDOT started tracking the numbers more closely in recent years, and determined the three most frequently used ramps. The Lower Straight Creek ramp has been used 75 times over the past five years — by far the busiest. 

The second highest usage comes on the recently rebuilt ramp at mile marker 182, toward the bottom of Vail Pass, with 27 uses in the same period. And the third highest is along U.S. 40, at mile marker 142 just south of Steamboat Springs, with 10 uses.

Revamping the Mount Vernon ramp

The state focused particular attention on the Mount Vernon ramp — the one announced by reminders, after a substantial descent, that truckers still aren’t all the way down yet. In the wake of the 2019 crash, low usage of the ramp prompted officials to seek feedback from trucking industry groups on ways to change that. One thing they heard was that better entrance signage could raise awareness of the ramp as a viable option for drivers.

They also recognized that the ramp, built in the late 1970s, could use some structural upgrading. This week, CDOT and its contractor will close the ramp for work to improve the design, structure and signs alerting drivers to its availability.

Stefanik notes that emergency ramp design hasn’t changed much over the years, except for a recently incorporated environmental element — a water-oil separator that acts like a manhole-sized drain that separates potentially hazardous material, like diesel fuel, and returns clean water to the storm sewer system. 

Mountain Recovery owner Charlie Stubblefield, who previously worked as a firefighter and paramedic, began the large truck towing company in 2019 after using his personal pickup truck to helping others stranded on the side of Interstate 70. Stubblefield says by swiftly removing the wreckage of large semi-trucks and other vehicles Mountain Recovery has reduced the time the highway is closed because of crashes by 64%. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

“We don’t have to get in there and do the hazardous material mitigation,” Stefanik says. “We’re able to get that truck out and then get that truck ramp back open.” 

The Mount Vernon ramp differs from most of the others in Colorado in part because it doesn’t rely on topography — and gravity — to slow a barreling semi. Instead, it leans heavily on friction from the aggregate material on the ramp’s arrestor bed. The new construction will increase the depth of that material to 36 inches to achieve a faster stop on the downhill grade. 

CDOT will implement a number of other tools to both encourage greater use in an emergency and more safely and effectively bring a truck — or trucks, as the ramp has been improved to accommodate potentially up to three vehicles — to a safe halt. 

Larger barriers between the ramp and the steep embankment to the right add another safety element, plus give drivers added confidence. Industry input revealed that drivers felt the old barrier looked too small, especially from their elevated perch, to keep them from launching over the edge.

“I think there’s a nervousness when you’re looking at it,” CMCA’s Fulton says. “To some extent it’s a little bit different than some of the others and it almost looks like it’s going to drop off there.”

The retooled ramp also will employ cameras and lighting to notify officials when it’s in use to improve response and reset time. Although the improved ramp will be shorter than the original, the new design will make it more visible, and where once drivers might have thought they missed the entry to the ramp, the new configuration allows them to line up for entry from the start of the arrestor bed.

The ramp will remain closed until completion of the improvements in late May or early June. Use of ramps tends to decline in the winter months as weather conditions often demand slower speeds, but CDOT and CMCA, along with other stakeholders, have collaborated on a communications campaign to keep drivers advised that the ramp will be closed so they can be especially cautious on that stretch of highway.

“We take a look at risks both ways — risk of having it down, and risk of not reconstructing and not making those improvements,” Stefanik says. “We try to outlay that and make an educated decision.”

The aftershock of recovery

Veering into the narrow corridor of a runaway truck ramp looms as a daunting proposition, though the instructions for doing so are straightforward. Maneuver to the far right lane on approach. Aim straight ahead and keep the wheels aligned. Try to remain in the center of the gravel bed to avoid tipping over. When the rig slows to a stop, call 9-1-1.

Once accomplished, the experience isn’t often repeated.

“I haven’t run across anybody that’s done it twice,” notes CSP’s Cutler.

On the ramps that dot the busy I-70 corridor, the first person many runaway truck drivers see after their ordeal is Charlie Stubblefield, owner of Mountain Recovery, who oversees 19 trucks and 30 employees out of locations in Vail, Silverthorne and Golden. He brings a message of encouragement.

“We always applaud those guys for taking that leap of faith and using that runaway ramp, because that’s a super scary thing,” he says. “And it takes some balls to do that. Some guys try to wait it out and they pass those runaway ramps up and then they end up crashed or rolled over at the bottom of the Silverthorne exit — with possibly people hurt and killed and multiple other vehicles involved.” 

Charlie Stubblefield answers the phone Nov. 27 while patrolling the interstate on Vail Pass. The Mountain Recovery owner has 19 trucks and 30 employees working from locations in Vail, Silverthorne and Golden. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

While Stubblefield has found drivers’ emotion to run the gamut when he arrives to help pull them out of the ramp, he does recognize a recurring theme: They tend to immediately blame the mechanic or whomever last worked on their brakes.

So he turns the encounter into a teachable moment, recounting that when he started Mountain Recovery and towed loaded semis down the mountain — 80,000 pounds’ worth attached to his 50,000-pound wrecker — he never used his brakes to maintain a safe speed. 

“We know that in the tallest, steepest, longest grades in North America here that we’re dealing with, your brakes will not stop you,” Stubblefield explains. “You need your engine brake; you need your downshifting; you need your transmission to slow you down and stop you. 

“Once I tell them that they’re like, ‘Oh, maybe it is my fault. I was using my brakes and I probably shouldn’t have been. I should have been in a lower gear.’”

Often, he says, they’re shaken and scared that they’ll be cited when a state trooper arrives to make a report. The entire experience has made some rethink their career choice.

“We’ve had drivers that just quit right there,” Stubblefield says. “They get out of their truck and they’re like, ‘Take me to an airport, please. I really don’t want to talk to anybody. Get me an Uber. I want to go to an airport and I’m done. I’m going home.’ We’ve had that happen on multiple occasions.”

Even Stubblefield, when he finds himself atop the often-used Lower Straight Creek ramp below the Eisenhower tunnel, admits to being a little awestruck by the dizzying vertical rise.

“Just looking at it from the bottom doesn’t do it justice,” he says. “No video will ever do it justice. It’s just being there — outside your vehicle and standing there as a human being on that ramp. It’s pretty spectacular.” 

For trucking companies, an easy removal by a tow truck might run $1,500, but they can go much higher. Stubbefield is aware of one job that wound up costing $35,000, after a driver mistakenly took an adjacent access road rather than the actual runaway truck ramp on Vail Pass and sent his rig airborne over an embankment and into the trees.

The lower ramp on Vail Pass that CDOT revamped a couple years ago now has contours that make recovery relatively easy. Instead of trucks running up a steep hill, they settle in more of a valley. That stands in contrast to the Lower Straight Creek ramp, where once a truck’s momentum has been stopped near the top, it can reverse and jackknife or roll, depending on the condition of the truck’s brakes and whether the aggregate is soft or frozen hard — further complicating the recovery. 

“There’s so many variables that come into play,” Stubblefield says.

Bringing the law up to speed

CDOT continues to look at the data to identify where they’ve seen hot brake issues and accidents to analyze those locations to determine whether an additional truck escape ramp would be useful.

“For the most part, I think we have them at the correct locations,” Stefanik says, “but we’re always looking to improve safety so we’ll continue to take a look.”

Technology continues to aid the safety effort. Thermal sensors help avert overheating brakes. Subscription-based, in-cab alert systems notify drivers of steep grades and locations of runaway truck ramps and other services. An algorithm-based warning system geared to the size of the truck, still in the planning stage, could eventually deliver safe downhill speeds to drivers.

Colorado also has taken legal steps to encourage drivers to focus attention on mountain habits.

The state legislature earlier this year passed a bill that, effective Jan. 1, allows CDOT to establish “steep downhill grade zones” — defined by grades of 5% or greater — where violations of the posted speed limit can cost the driver doubled fines plus surcharges.

But when preventative measures fail, there are still 13 last-ditch opportunities to dodge disaster.

“There’s not one single thing that’s going to take a huge chunk out of fatalities and serious injuries,” Stefanik says. “It’s going to be a whole system. I think truck escape ramps are a component of that.”