Boulder, CO Mobility & Curb Rules: Red-Light Cameras (2026)

Section 7-4-74 lets the city manager deploy red-light cameras to catch violations of Section 7-4-3, Obedience to Red Signal Required, and camera radar to catch violations of Section 7-4-58, Speeding. When a peace officer has probable cause from camera evidence, the officer, or a contractor the city manager designates, may issue a summons to the vehicle's registered owner; if more than one name is on the registration, it goes to whichever registrant the officer determines was most likely the driver shown. Registration alone creates a rebuttable evidentiary presumption that the registered owner was driving, which the defendant can overcome with competent evidence, and the presumption never arises if the image quality is too poor to identify anyone.

In court, the camera radar or red-light camera image is admissible as prima facie evidence of speed or of the red-signal violation, but only if the person who tested and activated the equipment testifies to its placement and to having checked its calibration both before and after the image was captured. Boulder built the program on its home-rule authority rather than the state's prima facie speed system: Subsection (j) makes the posted speed itself the reasonable and prudent speed for these citations. The city manager may release camera images only for law enforcement purposes, litigation involving the city, or to the vehicle's owner or driver, under Subsection (k), and must purge parking-related images that aren't needed as evidence on a regular schedule.