Large trucks were involved in 2,000 crashes on Colorado roads in 2024. Eighty-eight of those crashes were fatal, and 109 people died. Most of the people who die in these crashes are not in the truck.
This guide pulls together the federal and state numbers on where Colorado truck crashes happen, when they happen, and who the Colorado State Patrol says is usually at fault. It ends with what those patterns mean if you were hurt in one. If you want to skip the data and talk to someone, our Denver truck accident lawyers take calls around the clock at (303) 465-8733.
Colorado truck crashes by the numbers
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration tracks every reported large-truck crash in its Motor Carrier Management Information System. Here is Colorado’s recent record. The 2025 line is provisional, because carriers and police agencies have 22 months to finish reporting.
| Year | Large-truck crashes | Fatal crashes | Deaths | Injuries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2,114 | 100 | 111 | 718 |
| 2023 | 1,913 | 86 | 92 | 543 |
| 2024 | 2,000 | 88 | 109 | 676 |
| 2025 (provisional) | 2,091 | 65 | 70 | 868 |
Source: FMCSA Motor Carrier Management Information System, Colorado summary, large trucks, data snapshot September 25, 2026.
Two things stand out. First, the crash count is not falling. After a dip in 2023 it climbed back above 2,000. Second, the injury count jumped in 2025 even as reported deaths dropped, which is consistent with a year that is still being reported.
The Colorado State Patrol, which investigates most highway crashes, counts commercial vehicles a little differently and reported 1,270 commercial vehicle crashes in the first six months of 2024 and 1,188 in the first six months of 2025. Its view is blunt: that number should be zero, because these crashes are preventable.
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Where truck crashes happen in Colorado
I-70 through the mountains
The Colorado State Patrol has said for years that the single Colorado roadway with the most commercial-vehicle crashes is Interstate 70, and specifically the mountain corridor. Its enforcement effort each winter concentrates on four stretches: Floyd Hill, the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel, Vail Pass, and Glenwood Canyon. The Patrol’s own analysis of those crashes points to two causes above the rest: lane violations and speed.
The geography does the rest. From the Eisenhower-Johnson tunnel down toward Silverthorne, westbound I-70 drops on a 5.5-mile, seven percent grade. The Lower Straight Creek runaway truck ramp at the bottom of that descent is the most used ramp in the country. The Colorado Department of Transportation counted 75 trucks into it over five years.
Colorado has 13 runaway truck ramps in all. Drivers used them 30 times in 2020, 32 times in 2021, 44 times in 2022, and 31 times through early December 2023. When the State Patrol reviewed who was using the I-70 ramps, 65 percent of the drivers had five years or less of experience. The Patrol’s conclusion was that inexperience and unfamiliarity with the corridor, not the road itself, are what put trucks on those ramps.
The worst recent example happened on the way into Denver, not in the high country. In April 2019 a driver with failing brakes came down Mount Vernon Canyon on eastbound I-70 near Lakewood, missed the runaway ramp, and caused a 28-vehicle pileup that killed four people. The crash led CDOT to rebuild that ramp and to a joint safety campaign with the trucking industry called The Mountain Rules.
The Denver interstates
Most of Colorado’s freight either starts, ends, or changes highways in metro Denver. I-70 and I-25 cross here, I-76 feeds in from the northeast, and I-225 and C-470 carry trucks around the city. That concentration of trucks and commuters on the same pavement is why our Denver truck accident lawyers see more cases on these interstates than anywhere else.
The crashes here look different from the mountain crashes. They are rear-end and lane-change collisions at highway speed in heavy traffic, and the State Patrol’s description of the typical one is a passenger car cutting in front of a truck that then cannot stop. Captain John Hahn, who commands the Patrol’s motor carrier unit, put it this way in 2025: if a car speeds up to cut in front of a truck, there is not enough distance left if traffic stops.
The passes outside the Front Range
U.S. 160 over Wolf Creek Pass is the other well-documented trouble spot. Between 2015 and 2019, 47 semi-truck drivers crashed on the west side of the pass near the scenic overlook and three of them died. The passes on U.S. 550 between Ouray and Durango, Monarch Pass on U.S. 50, and Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat Springs all have runaway ramps for the same reason.
When truck crashes happen
Commercial-vehicle crashes in Colorado follow the weather. The State Patrol’s historical data shows them trending upward in October and peaking in January. That is why the Patrol’s enforcement push on I-70 starts each fall.
Colorado’s chain law is part of the answer. Every commercial vehicle over 16,000 pounds must carry chains or approved traction devices from September 1 through May 31 on I-70 west of Morrison to the Utah line, and on a list of other mountain highways that Senate Bill 24-100 expanded in August 2024. Over the four years from 2021 through 2024, I-70 produced more chain law citations than any other road in the state. A trucking company whose driver was running without chains in a chain law zone has a hard time arguing it was not negligent, which is one reason the chain law matters so much in a Colorado truck case.
Who is at fault, according to the State Patrol
This is the number most people get wrong, in both directions.
For crashes that do not kill anyone, the State Patrol attributes about 60 percent to the commercial driver. For fatal crashes, it attributes about 66 percent to the other driver, the person in the car, and says a quarter of those involve impairment.
Read those together and the picture is clear. Truck drivers cause most of the everyday collisions. When a crash turns deadly, the car driver more often made the fatal mistake, usually by cutting in, speeding, or driving impaired. Either way, the person who dies is almost always in the smaller vehicle, because an 80,000-pound truck wins every collision with a 4,000-pound car.
For an injured person this matters because Colorado uses modified comparative fault. If you are found 50 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing. If you are 30 percent at fault, your recovery is reduced by 30 percent. The trucking company’s insurer knows these statistics too, and its first move in nearly every case is to push as much fault as possible onto you. Our post on how Colorado’s comparative negligence law affects a truck claim walks through how that fight plays out.
Why Colorado truck crashes keep happening
Jason Jordan has handled trucking cases in Colorado for more than two decades. His explanation of the pattern:
“We have interstates in Colorado. You’ve got major trucking routes through I-70 going up to 80, down 25. You see a lot of semi accidents, and a lot of these things are significant and extremely serious as you can imagine. They’re huge. They’re massive and they cause massive injury and damage.”
The data points to four recurring causes.
Drivers who do not know the mountains. The State Patrol found that two out of three drivers using an I-70 runaway ramp had five years or less behind the wheel. CDOT says roughly 90 percent of ramp users come from out of state. A driver who has never descended a seven percent grade with a full load does not know how fast brakes overheat.
Speed and lane discipline. On I-70 in the mountains, the Patrol names lane violations and speed as the main factors. On the Denver interstates it is cars and trucks changing lanes into space that is not there.
Fatigue and the hours-of-service rules. Federal regulations limit how long a driver can be on duty, and electronic logging devices now record it. Jason has seen how that plays out in practice:
“The drivers have to keep logs, and sometimes they have two logs you’ll hear stories about, one that they show the police showing that they’re sleeping enough hours and the ones that they’re really running so that they can get their shipments across the country in time.”
Maintenance on owner-operator trucks. The shift toward independent contractors has changed who is responsible for keeping a truck safe:
“These cases have become more and more common the more you have owner-operator type situations. You have more of these trucking companies that are not really companies, but they’re more solo drivers who own their own vehicle, their own truck, and they’re doing contract work for other people. A lot of these people, unfortunately, when they’re having to pay their own tolls and pay their own gas and not get reimbursed, they wind up trying to run lines that are too long, and they wind up piecemealing a lot of their maintenance together.”
Each of those causes maps to a specific set of federal rules, and a violation of those rules is evidence of negligence. Our guide to FMCSA violations in Colorado truck cases covers the hours-of-service, maintenance, and driver qualification rules in detail.
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What the data means for your claim
The evidence has a short shelf life. The most important facts in a truck case, the driver’s electronic logs, the truck’s engine data, dashcam video, and the carrier’s maintenance file, are in the trucking company’s hands, and federal rules only require them to be kept for a limited time. Jason’s advice to anyone who has just been hit:
“There is a certain time limit where they have to maintain all that information under those federal rules, and you want to make sure that you have someone on your side immediately sending out letters saying you need to preserve that information.”
Our post on how quickly evidence disappears after a truck accident explains what gets lost first.
More than one party is usually responsible. The driver, the motor carrier, the company that loaded the trailer, the shop that did the brakes, and the broker that arranged the load can each carry a share of fault. That is why truck claims are built differently from car claims, and why the settlements run higher. See who can be held liable in a Colorado truck accident and what a Colorado truck accident settlement is worth.
You have three years, but you should not use them. Colorado gives you three years from the date of a motor vehicle crash to file a lawsuit. The evidence that wins the case will not last that long.
Delivery trucks are a separate category. Amazon, UPS, and FedEx vehicles are involved in a growing share of metro Denver crashes, and the question of who employs the driver is often the whole case. Our Denver delivery truck accident page covers that.
Frequently asked questions
How many truck accidents happen in Colorado each year?
According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, large trucks were involved in 2,000 reported crashes in Colorado in 2024, including 88 fatal crashes that killed 109 people. The provisional count for 2025 is 2,091 crashes.
Where do most truck accidents happen in Colorado?
The Colorado State Patrol identifies Interstate 70, especially the mountain corridor from Floyd Hill through the Eisenhower-Johnson tunnel, Vail Pass, and Glenwood Canyon, as the roadway with the most commercial vehicle crashes in the state. In metro Denver, the crashes concentrate where I-70, I-25, and I-76 meet.
Who is usually at fault in a Colorado truck accident?
The Colorado State Patrol attributes about 60 percent of non-fatal commercial vehicle crashes to the commercial driver and about 66 percent of fatal crashes to the driver of the other vehicle. Fault in any individual crash depends on the evidence, and under Colorado law your recovery is reduced by your share of fault and barred entirely at 50 percent.
What is Colorado’s chain law for trucks?
Commercial vehicles over 16,000 pounds must carry chains or approved traction devices from September 1 through May 31 on I-70 west of Morrison and on several other mountain highways, whether or not it is snowing. A carrier that violates the chain law and causes a crash has given you strong evidence of negligence.
How long do I have to file a truck accident claim in Colorado?
Three years from the date of the crash for most motor vehicle injury claims. Because trucking companies are only required to keep key records for a limited time, the practical deadline for preserving evidence is weeks, not years.
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Talk to a Denver truck accident lawyer
Jordan Law has recovered more than $550 million for injured Coloradans, and trucking cases are a core part of that work. If a commercial truck hit you or someone in your family anywhere in Colorado, call (303) 465-8733 for a free consultation. We will send the preservation letters the same day, and if we are not the right fit, we will point you to a lawyer who is.