Rant: Fight Back Against Speed Traps

Who’s up for a little civil disobediance? Local drivers have long been aware—though not as much as they’d like to be—that Denver’s Finest have some pet spots from which they furtively try to nab lead-footed motorists. In fact, our hometown is one of the country’s most notorious perpetrators of this practice.

Among the ones we encounter regularly:

* Along the Speer Boulevard bridge at I-25, where it seems like those little cross-median sidewalks were paved specifically to allow police motorcycles to perch and pounce.

* On First Avenue near the Cherry Creek mall, a 60,000-plus-car-per-day thruway that often has an automated van radaring and taking pictures of cars who exceed the (way too low) 30 miles per hour speed limit. Speeders get the bad news via mail a few weeks later.

* At Broadway and Blake Street, where officers stand outside their cruisers with radar guns as cars wind into downtown from Brighton Boulevard. The cops actually step in front of speeding cars to stop and write up the drivers.

Know of others? Tell us where you’ve been busted (a partial list can be found here). Whatever qualms we might have had in revealing them are mitigated by the fact that in alerting drivers to where these mini-sting operations are, we’re actually helping to reduce the number of speeders. The police, in turn, might then be forced to find some other lazy way to fill the city’s coffers. Jaywalkers and sidewalk spitters, beware.

Rave: Fuel Cafe Brunch

Brunches ranging from quirky to fancy are all the rage these days, but if you’re tired of waiting an hour or more for a table at one of Denver’s usually overrated breakfast hot spots, try Fuel Cafe. We at 5280 have lauded this RINO eatery, tucked into the TAXI complex, many times for its lunch and dinner offerings, but its brunch is just as tasty. The simple menu includes sweet and flaky scones, a rustic “Beef LT,” spicy and savory chilaquiles, and a variety of eye-opening daytime cocktails. What’s more, the Fuel patio is pleasant, the service is always hip but friendly, prices are reasonable—the basic PBR breakfast (eggs, potatoes, breakfast meat, and toast, with a 12-oz. brew) is $9 with the beer, $10 without—and there’s almost never a wait. So next time you drive to your go-to breakfast joint only to be greeted by a block-long line, remember that Fuel makes it worth spending another few minutes in the car.

—Image courtesy of Shutterstock