Trucks should not be run out of town.

It would be insane to do so. They are essential to our economy and well-being. As the saying goes, if you bought it a truck brought it.

That said trucks should not be allowed to overrun Manteca.

It’s getting crazy. They are parking at will on a wholesale basis. In doing so they are overriding community standards and rules established to strike a balance not just for quality of life and aesthetics in Manteca but safety as well.

The incessant droning of refrigerated trucks parked illegally in business and residential districts overnight or days on end disrupts sleep and creates hideous background noise.

The trucks — as long as 53 feet — block pedestrian and motorist sight lines parking where they aren’t supposed to or where they shouldn’t be allowed.

Working on truck engines and other maintenance parked along city streets reeks. Those who try to justify it by saying there are those who work on their cars in driveways and such are way off the mark. Private property you control is one thing. Commandeering public property or “squatting” on private land that is not yours to service trucks or park trucks is another.

A few summers back a resident off South Main Street was being serenaded nightly by a trucker who parked his refrigerated rig downwind from his home on the edge of an almond orchard in an area that wasn’t even in the public right of way.

When police repeatedly said they could do nothing, he noted that it would be a different story if he drove his pickup to the trucker’s residence at a newly minted subdivision across the street, pulled up onto his lawn, and left it there for 14 hours or so with the doors locked and the radio turned up full blast.

Rules are rules for a reason.

If the city has no intent of following them and applying them to everyone, then they need to be taken off the books.

It is getting rather lame for Manteca to use the fact there are ordinances on city books as their defense that they are “doing something” and then infer it’s a civil matter, they lack manpower to enforce the rules, or their staff lacks the skill sets to enforce them by absolving themselves of all responsibility and deferring to the CHP on city streets.

It is equally disingenuous for them to keep putting rules in place and drawing paychecks when they steadfastly refuse to enforce a whole list of quality of life ordnances put in place over the years by the council members people elect by saying they need to have a citizen make a compliant first.

The reason is always the same.  They never have enough manpower.

That’s a worn out excuse that simply allows the city to keep playing the “see no evil, hear no evil” card instead of doing its job.

Complaint driven enforcement of legal city standards is as effective and insane as telling residents of Mission Ridge Drive that police officers won’t stop any motorists they observe speeding as they head down the  street unless one of the residents calls up and makes a complaint.

Manteca’s “unique” system of municipal governance has set it apart from neighboring cities such as Tracy, Ripon, Riverbank, Lathrop, and Escalon that take proactive approaches to enforcing rules involving trucks.

Those cities didn’t need to hire extra staff. Nor do they have personnel drive around their cities 24/7 dropping tickets like confetti. What they do is make a constant effort to be consistent and target problematic areas. Surprising as it may sound, word gets around. Truck drivers get the message.

Truck parking at will when they are not making deliveries has progressively worsened over the years.

Three years ago you wouldn’t see a single truck parked near any of the Manteca interchanges on the 120 Bypass. Now it isn’t unusual to see times where there are a dozen or more.

And if those at city hall say people need to lodge official complaints instead of just moaning and groaning, someone needs to remind them that it takes an inordinate amount of “dynamite” in the form of citizen pressure to get them to move off their dime.

A classic example is a now departed police administration that routinely brushed aside complaints about illegal truck parking along Airport Way.

The most egregious example was between Daniels Street and the 120 Bypass where three to four trucks at a time along with cars for sale crammed onto the asphalt along the edge of Airport Way adjacent to the Stadium Retail Center. On some days several rigs would also be parked along the northbound lane across the street by McDonald’s.

After the umpteenth complaint, instead of brass driving by themselves they went online and Googled the location.

Thanks to Google Street View footage taken several years prior they got a clear shot of the area with no trucks but with a series of no parking signs in the background. Someone — could it have been truckers looking for free parking space for their business on wheels — had removed the signs.

The brass drove out, verified the signs were missing, had them replaced, police started ticketing, and the truck parking issue went away. Was it magic? No, it was the city doing the job they were hired to do by a populace that incorporated 104 years ago for the purpose of basic services and bringing order to chaos.

This cuts both ways. There are bonehead issues truckers have to deal with even on legal truck routes that make their job frustrating.

What should the city do? For starters they shouldn’t be allowed to say “we’re working on a truck route study to be completed first” before enforcing existing laws

Given they commissioned a truck study that was supposed to have been done in nine months more than three years ago, it is the equivalent of doing nothing.

Here’s a novel idea. Why doesn’t city management assemble a team of the best and brightest — one from police traffic enforcement, one from public works, one from the fire department, and one from the streets or park division. Have a city council member join them.

Then set aside one day a month to “inspect a corridor”. The council member, in advance, could ask people to alert them of concerns as well as make it a point to drive the area being targeted several times at different hours before the grand excursion from city hall occurs.

What the team will do is drive/walk the targeted corridor and note things that can be changed for the better without hiring a consultant to tell them or the need to pursue a major project.

The list could include but not be limited to trimming back vegetation in public areas where sight lines are impaired, refreshingly street markings, imposing height limits for parked vehicles near intersections, noting where trucks and other vehicles are parking illegally, looking for fire hydrants that are being routinely blocked and are in need of reminder red paint on curbs, note burned out street lights, and look for low-cost ways to make crossing streets safer such as painting curbs red were vehicles — trucks included — crowd intersections.

Then send the items listed to the proper departments and have them addressed.

Or Manteca can just continue on its merry way of treating trucks as if they are sacred cows.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com