Driving in National Parks: New Bill Applies State Traffic Laws to Park Roads

This new legislation aims to simplify traffic enforcement inside our National Park Service (NPS) areas—what the bill calls "System units." Essentially, it mandates that if you’re driving on a paved road within a national park, you must follow the traffic laws of the state the park is located in. This includes everything from speed limits and passing rules to stop sign compliance. If you break a state traffic law inside the park, you can now be ticketed under that state’s law, standardizing how traffic violations are handled.

Your Speed Limit Just Changed

Until now, traffic rules in many national parks were primarily governed by federal regulations, which sometimes differed from the surrounding state laws. This bill, found in Section 1, cuts through that confusion by making state traffic laws the governing standard for motor vehicles on park roads. For instance, if you are driving through Yosemite National Park, you will now follow California’s specific traffic code regarding speed and right-of-way, not a potentially separate federal standard. This is a big win for consistency: as soon as you cross the park boundary, the rules you just followed on the state highway continue inside the park.

The Real-World Impact: Consistency vs. Complexity

For most drivers, this change is about predictability. If you’re a tourist from out of state driving across the country and visit three different national parks, you might now have to follow three different sets of traffic rules, depending on the state you are in. However, the flip side is that the rules within any given state will be uniform, whether you are on a highway or a park road. The bill also delegates the definition of an "off-highway vehicle" entirely to the state where the park is located. This means whether your ATV or side-by-side is allowed on certain park roads will depend on that specific state’s definition, potentially creating inconsistency between parks in different states.

Who’s Handling the Tickets?

This shift primarily affects enforcement. By adopting state law, the process for issuing citations for speeding or running a stop sign becomes much more aligned with typical state procedures. For the National Park Service, this means less reliance on specialized federal regulations and more coordination with familiar state legal frameworks. For visitors, the practical takeaway is simple: don’t assume the park has its own relaxed set of rules. If you get a ticket for speeding in the Grand Canyon, you will be dealing with an Arizona traffic violation, not a unique federal park citation. While this is intended to simplify things, busy visitors need to be aware that the rules of the road are now strictly tied to the state they are currently driving through.