DENVER -- The snow is already falling in the mountains and the Colorado State Patrol wants to remind truckers to carry your chains or be prepared to pay up.

"We've already been doing some random inspections of vehicles to make sure they are in fact complying with Colorado’s chain law. Most commercial carriers that come through Colorado know the consequences, not only the legal consequences but the commercial consequence, of getting one of your vehicles stuck on a mountain roadway. It's something we're very concerned about," said Trooper David Hall.

Colorado's current chain law requires commercial vehicles operating on I-70 between Morrison and Dotsero from Sept. 1 to May 31 to carry sufficient chains to be in compliance with the Colorado chain law.

According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, last winter was the first season when I-70 was not closed due to an incident with a semi truck. CDOT did report incidents where lanes were blocked for a total of 121 hours due to semitrailers, but there were no full highway closures.

CDOT's Stacey Stegman said they are moving in the right direction.

"We know when I-70 is closed it's an economic impact to Colorado of about $800,000 an hour. That's a tremendous waste of dollars. So what we do is try to minimize the amount of time it's closed and get the highway open as soon as possible. That's why we now have wreckers out there to help get semis moving quickly when they get stalled. We have tougher chain laws and higher levels of compliance and higher levels of enforcement to try to get truckers to comply with that and we also have the same tow program for other vehicles that get stuck as well," Stegman said.

The CSP said one of the factors that is increasing compliance by truckers is the increased fines for not having chains when the chain law is in effect. The fine for not chaining up when the chain law is in effect is $500 plus a $157 surcharge. The fine for not chaining up and subsequently blocking the highway is $1,000 plus a $313 surcharge.

"It's in nobody's best interest for them to be blocking the highway. This is something we can do to propel them to do the right thing. But most of them, the vast majority of them, do the right thing anyway," said Hall.

To get the latest information on chain laws and state wide road conditions visit COTRIP.org.