Many areas are forbidden for UTVs and ATVs to operate in areas where street legal four wheel drive vehicles are in the Maze and Flint Trail areas of Glen Canyon Recreational Area and Canyonlands National Park, so there are areas but these areas are usually only accessible to off road capable true 4 wheel drive vehicles. Many national parks have limited UTV and ATV use. BLM lands with established roads and previously mined or lumbered areas are having roads closed to all vehicle traffic at an accelerated rate it seems causing congestion of a sorts to the ever growing number of off road vehicles in my opinion. With the new administration areas like “The Bears Ears Monument” will most likely be reduced in size along with many others that have natural resources as they were during Trump’s first term. So better get used to seeing all sorts of activity on federal lands.
I just try to stick far away from hyped up places, places where there are more tourists and younger people, areas that had population influx. I dont want to camp near those anyway. Give very wide berth to "destination" types of places or known 4x4 meccas, stay far out of towns too. I go to less known places, regions where life is mostly old school and not many tourists, where regulations dont favor OHVs also. Cows are a different story...I wish there were more rules for those, cows not ohvs is what I usually see out there. Aslo have sort of a gut feeling by looking at the maps, where ohvs are going to be found, and watch out for campsite reviews mentioning them
There are def no federal building codes regulations that apply country-wide to SFH.
You are right there are places where laws are not enforced but they are getting fewer. If the economy goes bad there will probably be less funding and even less enforcement but the laws are still there for what good or bad they do.
Building codes are not laws, really. While septic regulations at least make sense I have no interest in meeting illegal and unconstitutional rules called building codes or some inspector telling me to have running water or flush toilet, what square footage to have or how to build things. The control over building and overall land usage is getting increased for sure and will probably get much worse. Alaska is historically more untied from that stuff because of remoteness and soil/weather too, also general mentality of people there and less population, so it will remain free for longer.
