Monument Hill Closes I-25 Every Winter. Bald Tires Become Your Problem in the Claim.
Anyone who commutes the stretch of I-25 between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs knows the pattern. A storm moves across the Palmer Divide, the grade over Monument Hill glazes over, and a corridor that carries a great deal of Front Range traffic turns into a chain of spinouts and multi-vehicle collisions. Then it closes. Sometimes for hours.
What most drivers do not anticipate is what happens afterward inside the insurance claim. The other driver lost control on ice and struck you. That seems straightforward. But if a traction restriction was active and your tires were worn, the adjuster now has a story about your equipment rather than their insured’s driving, and the value of your claim starts moving in the wrong direction for reasons that have nothing to do with who caused the collision.
Ice Is Not a Defense to Causing a Crash
Start with the principle that gets ignored most often. Colorado drivers have a duty to operate at a speed reasonable and prudent for the actual conditions, not merely at or below the posted limit. A posted 75 on I-25 is not a permission slip during a storm.
So the statement that the roads were icy is not a legal defense. It is a description of the conditions the driver was obligated to account for. A driver who approaches the Monument grade at highway speed on packed snow, loses control, and crosses into your lane has not been victimized by weather. They failed to adjust to a condition that was visible, forecast, and signed. Insurers nonetheless open these claims with some version of nobody was at fault, it was just the weather, and a surprising number of injured people accept that framing.
Traction Law and Chain Law Are Different Restrictions
Colorado runs a tiered system, and knowing which level was active matters after a crash.
Under the Passenger Vehicle Traction Law, the Colorado Department of Transportation requires every motorist to have either tires designated mud and snow, winter tires carrying the mountain snowflake icon, or manufacturer all-weather rated tires, each with a tread depth of at least three sixteenths of an inch, or alternatively chains or an approved alternative traction device on two or more drive tires.
The Passenger Vehicle Chain Law is the more restrictive tier and functions as the last measure before a highway is closed outright. When it is active, every vehicle on the road must have chains or an approved traction device installed regardless of drivetrain. All-wheel drive does not exempt you.
Both apply to passenger vehicles under 16,001 pounds, which covers most cars, crossovers, SUVs, and light trucks. CDOT updated the traction requirements in late 2025 to place the emphasis on tire type and condition rather than on drivetrain, a change the agency announced alongside the Colorado State Patrol in its guidance on the current requirements. If your understanding of the rule is that four wheel drive is automatically sufficient, that understanding is out of date.
These Restrictions Reach I-25, Not Just I-70
The traction law is permanently in force on I-70 between Morrison and Dotsero from September 1 through May 31, which is why most coverage of the rule is framed around mountain travel. That framing misleads Front Range drivers.
CDOT can activate traction and chain restrictions on any state highway when conditions warrant, and it does so on I-25 across the Palmer Divide with some regularity. There are chain stations positioned for exactly this corridor, including northbound near Monument and southbound near Larkspur. The infrastructure exists because the restrictions get used here.
A driver traveling between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs who assumes traction law is an I-70 concern is exposed both to a citation and, more consequentially, to a comparative fault argument after a crash. Our page on I-25 corridor crashes covers how these cases develop.
How a Restriction Becomes an Argument Against You
Colorado applies modified comparative negligence with a bar at 50 percent. Fault gets apportioned by percentage, your recovery is reduced by your share, and at 50 percent or more you recover nothing. That structure gives an insurer a direct financial motive to find something you did wrong.
Worn tires during an active restriction are exactly the kind of finding they look for. The argument runs that if your tread had met the standard you would have maintained control, avoided the secondary impact, or stopped short of the pileup. It is frequently a weak argument. Tread depth explains very little about a collision where you were struck from behind while stopped. But it is an argument that gets made, and it works often enough to be worth an adjuster’s time.
The response is evidence rather than argument. Photograph your tires at the scene. Keep the receipt if they were recently replaced. Note whether restriction signage was actually displayed and where. Whether a restriction was in effect at a given time and location is a documented fact that can be established from CDOT records, and it is worth establishing rather than conceding.
Chain Reaction Crashes Are Not One Crash
The multi-vehicle pileups this corridor produces are legally distinct from ordinary collisions. Ten vehicles involved may mean several separate impacts, several separate negligent acts, and several insurance policies, with the sequence of impacts often disputed by everyone.
Colorado allocates fault among parties by percentage, and defendants may designate nonparties they contend share responsibility. In a large pileup this becomes a contest in which every carrier attempts to shift its insured’s percentage onto someone else, including onto drivers who are not even part of the lawsuit. Whether you were struck once or three times, and by whom and in what order, drives the entire allocation.
The evidence that settles this decays fast. Vehicle resting positions and debris fields are cleared within hours because the highway has to reopen. Event data recorder information sits in modules that get scrapped when vehicles are totaled. Commercial vehicle telematics follow retention schedules that are shorter than most people assume. Nearby camera footage is overwritten. In a corridor crash, the difference between calling a lawyer in the first week and calling in the second month is often the difference between a provable sequence and a guess.
Commercial Trucks Change the Analysis
I-25 through the Palmer Divide is a freight corridor, and commercial vehicles are subject to their own chain requirements and to federal safety regulations that passenger drivers are not.
When a tractor trailer is involved, additional questions open up. Was the carrier’s chain policy followed. Did dispatch pressure the driver to run through a restriction. What do the electronic logs show about hours of service before the crash. Was the equipment inspected and maintained. Those are answerable questions, but only if preservation demands reach the carrier before its ordinary retention periods run.
What to Do After a Winter Crash on the Grade
Safety first, because the greatest danger in a corridor crash is the vehicle that arrives next. Get clear of travel lanes if you can do so safely, and understand that Colorado’s move over expectations apply only where there are no injuries and it is safe to move.
Then document. Photograph the roadway surface, not just the vehicles, because whether the surface was ice, packed snow, or wet pavement will be disputed later. Photograph the signage if any is visible. Note the time and the milepost. Photograph your own tires. Get the names of every driver involved, not only the one who hit you, because in a chain reaction the responsible party may be three vehicles back. Seek medical evaluation the same day even if the adrenaline has you feeling fine.
And be careful about what you say. In winter conditions people are inclined to be gracious and say things like everybody was sliding out there. Adjusters treat that as an admission.
Closures Create Their Own Hazards
When CDOT closes the corridor, traffic does not evaporate. It stops on the interstate, backs up for miles, and diverts onto secondary routes that were never built for that volume in winter conditions. Both outcomes generate crashes of their own.
Stopped and slow moving queues on a highway are where the worst rear end collisions happen, because the last driver to arrive is the one still traveling at speed with limited sight distance in blowing snow. Meanwhile the frontage roads and two lane county routes that absorb diverted traffic are often less treated, less lit, and unfamiliar to the drivers using them. A crash that occurs during a closure is not automatically anyone’s fault in the same way, but the analysis of what a reasonable driver should have done changes when the conditions were severe enough to shut the interstate.
Talk to a Colorado Injury Lawyer
Rampart Injury Lawyers is based in Castle Rock and represents injured people along the I-25 corridor from Greenwood Village through Monument to Colorado Springs. Todd Travis and Jordan Travis handle the multi-vehicle winter crashes this stretch of highway produces every season, including the pileups where four carriers spend months pointing at each other. If you were hurt on the grade this winter, contact our office for a free consultation with an attorney.
