Fort Collins cracks down on College cruisers

There’s a party that happens in the south Fort Collins Taco Bell parking lot on Friday nights.

To fit in, it’s best if you have a truck.

College Avenue cruising has been a mainstay in Fort Collins for decades. And longtime residents know it’s nothing new that big trucks blanket intersections with a suffocating layer of diesel soot from Old Town to Harmony Road.

But increasingly, the deafening rev of engines and suffocating smoke has spurred complaints, and the epicenter for it all has become ground zero for a series of summer city police stings.

“It’s obviously creating a safety hazard for any citizen who wants to drive down College Avenue,” said Fort Collins Police Sgt. Adam Ruehlen, as I rode along with the officer Friday night.

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Officers with the traffic unit have teamed up with the Neighborhood Enforcement Team to issue citations for motorists who “roll coal” down College Avenue. While many consider smoky trucks obnoxious, the behavior alone isn’t inherently illegal.

However, exhibiting the power of one’s vehicle by speeding from light to light, revving the engine and pumping out the smoke carries with it a five-point violation and fines in excess of $100.

Since the coordinated enforcement effort started earlier this year, officers have written approximately 150 tickets. Those range from simple speed exhibition — stomping on an accelerator from light to light — to more serious charges of DUI and careless driving — like what happened Friday night in Midtown.

While patrolling College Avenue, a Fort Collins officer spots a passenger hanging out the side window of a northbound white GMC truck — the teen is clutching what appears to be a can of Coors Light.

After the officer flips on his emergency lights, the pickup whips a quick U-turn at Elizabeth Street and rips off south on College Avenue, clocking speeds of at least 86 mph, according to court records, in a 35 mph zone.

Police cut off the pursuit and radio for backup.

The lifted truck with a black Fox Racing decal on the hood and a pair of American flags flapping in the back barrels through the red light at Prospect Road, plows into a silver sedan and careens into a planter at the Shell gas station on the southwest corner of the intersection.

The driver, 21-year-old Andre Ahnstedt, darts across the road while officers respond from across town to help in the manhunt.

“I’ve got one at gunpoint” crackles across the radio.

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Ahnstedt is arrested moments later on the nearby MAX guide way. As investigators pull a case of Coors and a few empties from the cab, the Windsor man tells officers he drank five beers over the previous nine hours and bought the booze for his 18-year-old passenger.

He’s arrested on suspicion of eluding police, obstruction and DWAI.

On Friday night — while cruisers roll by the crash scene — police say they are reminded how serious the situation has become along one of the city’s busiest roads.

“A lot of times what we see is them racing,” Ruehlen says. Friday night was the latest in a string of enforcement efforts that put officers up and down the city’s main street in pursuit of cruisers breaking the law.

“They’ll race each other from one light to the next. Obviously, that creates a pretty big safety hazard,” he said.

Some cruisers are from Fort Collins, but many drive from miles and sometimes even hours away to roll up and down College Avenue and show off their jacked up trucks, meddle with friends, settle feuds on the road and get a jolt of adrenaline in the process.

With roads increasingly choked with heavy traffic and marred by construction, the pastime has become more risky, police say. That’s especially true when drivers roll coal and show off their power in Old Town and areas near Colorado State University.

The traffic violations are only part of the problem.

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Friday night was one of the warmest evenings of the year. It was also one of the busiest on College Avenue and at the Taco Bell parking lot near Hobby Lobby in south Fort Collins.

At 9:30 p.m., there were about 50 cars, trucks, motorcycles and Hawaiian-painted scooters spread across the sprawling lot. Some of the drivers worked under the hood. Most everyone just hung out.

By 10:30 p.m., there were at least 100 vehicles and upwards of 250 people. It looked like tailgating at a concert or football game.

Taco Bell likely profits from the unadvertised weekly event, though managers would not discuss how big of a role the cruiser crowd plays with its weekly bottom line.

The endless stream of cars through the drive-through, however, is telling.

Managers also declined to discuss what sorts of challenges exist with the crowd and why they don’t push for stricter loitering enforcement. And this year the number of people who cluster here has reached a new level.

Reports of a fight scattered some of the crowd about 11 p.m. Seeing the mangled GMC high-centered on the grassy median and the driver performing field sobriety tests likely dampened the mood for others, Ruehlen speculates.

But they’ll be back — business owners and police know that.

“I don’t see a lot of alcohol. I don’t see anything like that. I just think they don’t have anywhere else they can go,” said Melissa Allen, longtime manager of Hobby Lobby, which controls a parking lot adjacent to the congregation of cruisers.

She’s called police in the past when the parking lot party spills onto her property. Usually it’s just a hangout spot. Once someone in the group set up a wooden steer and had a roping competition.

Usually the crowd — from teens to families — just mill around, binge on burritos and move along about midnight, she said.

“When we come in in the morning, I usually send an employee out to pick up the trash,” she said. “They just kind of tear in and out with their vehicles.”

Reporter Jason Pohl covers breaking news and law enforcement for the Coloradoan. Follow him on Twitter: @pohl_jason.

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Enforcing those who roll coal in Fort Collins

Fort Collins police cannot cite motorists who blast smoke from tailpipes, known as “rolling coal.” But officers in recent weeks have started cracking down on related behaviors that involve the exhibition of speed for diesel vehicles — the main culprits.

Recent enforcement operations have put multiple officers in different areas so they can observe vehicles committing the violation and write a ticket. That boosts the chances that a citation holds up in court.

The following if from the city’s traffic code and is what officers lean on when citing people.

“No person shall engage in any motor vehicle speed exhibition on a street or highway, and no person shall aid or abet in any such motor vehicle speed exhibition on any street or highway.

For purposes of this Section, speed exhibition shall mean the operation of a motor vehicle to present a display of speed or power. Speed exhibition includes, but is not limited to, squealing the tires of a motor vehicle while it is stationary or in motion, rapid acceleration, rapid swerving or weaving in and out of traffic, producing smoke from tire slippage or leaving visible tire acceleration marks on the surface of the roadway or ground.”

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