DENVER — Desiree Everts thinks about the crash every day.
It’s been nearly nine months since her five family members were killed by a truck driver on I-25. The driver didn’t have a valid commercial driver’s license.
"There should be stricter rules on this stuff. This stuff should not have happened," she said. "If there were stricter rules on this stuff, they could still probably be here to this day."
A bill now has lawmakers debating whether the punishment should be harsher for drivers on the road without a valid CDL. In the senate, lawmakers passed a version that makes it a misdemeanor. But lawmakers in the house amended the bill to make driving a truck without a proper license still a traffic violation, now punishable with a $100 fine and a $15 surcharge.
"It would effectively be the lowest penalty that we know of in the country," said Greg Fulton, President of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, a trade group advocating for the trucking industry. "Our job is to make things safer each year and this doesn’t do it."
Fulton lobbied to increase the punishment for drivers without a CDL and says with a simple fine, paying the money will become a cost of doing business for keeping bad drivers on the road.
"It’s essential that we have safe driver’s out there, and that means drivers that are trained and competent," He said. "Driving an 80,000-pound tractor trailer isn’t something for everyone. It takes a level of skill, the right mindset, and a level of proficiency that not everyone has."
The law was originally changed back in 2021 making driving without a CDL a traffic violation. It was part of a misdemeanor reform act and was passed on the recommendation of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ).
"This bill was also one of those CCJJ bills and what their recommendation was to lower it from a misdemeanor to a Class A traffic infraction for driving without a CDL. That’s because the results would be basically the same," said Republican Rep. Matt Soper.
Soper was one of the sponsors of the bill this year in the house where the misdemeanor punishment was stripped. He argues the punishment would ultimately be the same whether it’s a misdemeanor or a traffic violation.
He said the ultimate punishment for a misdemeanor offense will likely be a fine anyways, so there’s no difference. He did acknowledge that with a misdemeanor offense some people will spend at least a night in jail.
"There are plenty of laws in the books to be able to deal with that. We could charge them with reckless driving or careless driving," Soper said. "There are plenty of penalties out there that cause me to think that the state of the law is just fine. The Motor Carriers’ concerns are a little bit overrated."
But penalties like reckless driving and vehicular homicide are only triggered once a crash happens, something Everts wants to prevent from ever happening again.
"It makes me sick to my stomach," Everts said. "No other family should have to go through what we’re going through."
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Next with Kyle Clark