Got a speeding ticket in Boulder lately? You might just catch a break.

Boulder police and city transportation officials are investigating the possibility that a photo-radar van was parked illegally when it snapped pictures of passing speeders — possibly hundreds of them.

Cmdr. Robert Thomas, who heads the traffic unit for the Boulder Police Department, said he’s looking into allegations that one of the city’s photo-radar units was operating in a clearly marked “no parking” and “tow-away” zone along Broadway, just north of Norwood Avenue in north Boulder.

Boulder resident Mac Fraser, 67, lives near the intersection and said he became concerned when the van started parking in a patch of public landscaping off the road where Broadway merges northbound drivers into a single lane at the crest of a small hill.

“Those that live out here know they either have to slow down or speed up past a car to get into that lane,” Fraser said. “It’s a great speed trap — that’s really all it is.”

Fraser said the van has been snapping pictures of drivers and license plates in the same spot as many as four times a week for more than a year.

“My wife and I actually call each other, and occasionally a friend, when we come down” Broadway, Fraser said. “We’ll just pick up the phone and say, ‘If you’re coming down, the van’s out.’”

After the Camera told Thomas about Fraser’s complaint earlier this week, the commander said he personally drove to the site and looked for himself.

“The citizen’s right,” Thomas said Friday. “You can’t have a van breaking the law and a citizen getting a ticket for breaking the law — that’s not right.”

But Thomas said it’s also not quite as simple as that.

The person who parked the van at the questionable site, a city transportation employee who mans the van for the police department, is arguing that there is a posted sign specifically allowing the van to operate near the intersection.

Such signs are posted throughout select locations in Boulder, Thomas said, but neither he nor the Camera was able to locate a sign allowing photo-radar use along the north stretch of Broadway.

According to Camera archives, the van was operating at the intersection as long ago as 2006, when it was deployed 20 times for a total of 827 violations. Photo radar has been in use in Boulder since 1998.

Thomas said he’ll work with the city transportation office and photo-radar employees early next week to determine whether the van was allowed to operate there.

“I know this is a hot issue,” Thomas said. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this.”

City managers in charge of the photo-radar program were not able to be reached by phone Thursday or Friday.

If it turns out the van was operating in an illegal spot, Thomas said he’ll work with the city attorney’s office and the Boulder municipal courts to dismiss all tickets given from that location. Anyone who already paid for or lost an appeal from such tickets would likely be issued a refund, he said, although the final decision on those actions would have to come from the city attorney’s office and the courts.

Janet Michels, a prosecutor with the Boulder city attorney’s office, said there is nothing in Colorado law that specifically invalidates tickets issued from an illegally parked photo-radar van — but she’ll listen to whatever recommendations the police issue.

“When the enforcement agency makes recommendations to us about what they believe is an appropriate disposition of a case, we factor that in very seriously,” Michels said.

Fraser, whose brother received a $40 speeding ticket from the van Feb. 20, said getting a refund and removing the van would only be fair.

“Finally, they can be taken to task like all of us.”

That sign is in Aurora, CO, which has what are termed safety zones to increase the level of penalties near certain schools and construction sites. If you get a speeding ticket in one of these zones, for example, you can be assessed the regular ticket charge plus an additional fine of at least $100.

Although it’s not shown in this photograph, an Aurora spokeswoman stated that, there are always signs nearby that indicate a school zone or construction area.

I guess this sign is similar to the signs in construction zones in Texas that state “Fine Double When Workers Present”. They just have to be present — not actually working.

Colorado lawmakers are looking to the highway patrol to assist efforts to balance the state budget. Earlier this month a state legislative panel unanimously approved a proposal to more than double the cost of speeding tickets and other minor traffic infractions. Colorado Legislative Council staff estimated the change could generate more than $14.7 million in extra revenue from the 208,000 motorists who receive traffic tickets annually, with the state only paying a one-time cost of $33,600 to reprogram court computers with the higher fine amounts.

State House Transportation Committee Chairman Buffie McFadyen (D-Pueblo West) introduced the fine legislation as well as a second measure that would make “work zone” speed traps mandatory. Under the proposal, photo radar would generate automated citations from speeding drivers and a “move over” provision would be used to cite the motorists who are not speeding.

McFadyen is using the tragic death of freeway worker Charles Mather to promote the concept of lowering speed limits and doubling fines in anything designated as a work zone up to four hours before any actual road work is done. The mandatory traps would be put in place no matter how minor the work and regardless of whether it involved any potential hazards or not. The law even allows warning signs to be posted on moving vehicles to create a roving zone with the enhanced penalties.

Any motorist on a freeway who fails to “move over” one lane away from a work truck on the side of the road commits a crime and can be ticketed. Several states already require motorists to take similar actions for marked ambulances and police cars, but this would be the first to mandate the conduct for “privately owned vehicles as are designated by the state motor vehicle licensing agency necessary to the preservation of life and property,” as well as tow trucks “approved by the public utilities commission.”

In 2006, Illinois pioneered the concept of using freeway work zone speed cameras to generate millions in the name of protecting construction workers. The evidence, however, indicates that only 15 percent of freeway construction zone injuries are actually caused by automobiles. A far greater number of workers are injured by their own construction equipment.