County employees have recently been enforcing traffic laws inside Ancil Hoffman Park. It is a County facility and County Park Rangers have law enforcement jurisdiction there. Why they were doing it - to improve safety, to raise revenue, whatever - doesn't matter. Traffic laws are supposed to be enforced. If they aren't enforced, they will be violated. Failure to enforce traffic laws can result in dreadful consequences.

Traffic enforcement in Ancil Hoffman Park, however, raises questions about why traffic laws are similarly NOT enforced in the unincorporated area, the UnCity, where the County is responsible for municipal affairs. The state gives the CHP responsibility to enforce traffic laws across all of unincorporated California. While that arrangement saves the County money, we the taxpayers still have to pick up the tab for the CHP expenses. Yet, the CHP's workload is massive. In addition to local roads in unincorporated areas, the CHP is also in charge of traffic enforcement on state highways and also bears the former responsibilities of the California State Police. That the CHP is thinly spread throughout the state means CHP officers aren't necessarily available on a routine basis for things like speed traps, DUI checkpoints or rolling stop violations in various neighborhoods of unincorporated Sacramento County like ours.

The upshot is that in Sacramento County's UnCity, and especially in Arden Arcade (home of the Watt Avenue Raceway), it is commonplace for people to drive unregistered vehicles, roll through stop signs, drive too fast, and park trucks in the center turn lane. All such behaviors are violations of the motor vehicle code. But don't bother to complain about those problems. It will get you nowhere. The County says talk to the CHP. The CHP says call the non-emergency number. Life goes on, nothing changes. Of course, the situation would be different if unincorporated communities became cities. Except for state highways and freeways that might run through their jurisdiction, cities, not the CHP, are responsible for traffic enforcement within their boundaries. Given that Arden Arcade is not a city, though, we are stuck with the County relying on the CHP. So the question is:  Why do we, the citizens of an unincorporated area, tolerate lax traffic law enforcement?