2011 Rides Committee
By Wade Wegner, Rides Captain - updated 1/31/12
3 Foot Safe Passing bill
With more and more of us on bikes, sharing the road has never been more important. A new state law could help drivers understand just how important it is to give us room even when we’re riding in a group— three feet at least. At the moment, the proposed law is stuck in the Senate Transportation Committee.
More than 20 states have some form of a “safe passing” law. Now NJ can join the list. And it’s not just for us who ride when we ride. It covers walkers, joggers, Moms with strollers — every “vulnerable” person on the road.
Passing this law has the following potential benefits:
- It reaffirms cyclists' rights to the road
- It provides legal recourse in the event that cyclists are involved in a traffic collision, and
- It will help educate drivers on proper passing.
The New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition (NJBWC) is looking for your help to get this bill passed. If you support this bill, they are asking that you both sign the petition (if you have not already done so) and spread the word to others to do so.
The electronic petition can be found here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/3-feet-safe-passing
TD Bank Membership Affinity Program
TD Bank has invited the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey to participate in their Affinity Membership Program. The basic details are pretty straight forward. TD Bank will make an annual contribution to BTCNJ based on the average balance of our members who already have existing accounts with TD Bank and any members who open new accounts. Eligible consumer and business accounts include checking, savings, money market, certificates of deposit, and retirement accounts. BTCNJ will receive a ½ of 1% contribution on the annual average balances of all participants with checking accounts, and ¼ of 1% on all other accounts. It does not include investments. In order to qualify for the program is that we have at least 100 members, new or old accounts, participating. There is no down side. They get new accounts, and BTCNJ gets a welcome addition to our bottom line. It’s also an opportunity to help with our charity contributions, reduction in costs to our members for dues, club merchandise, special events, etc.
How do you get started? Easy. If you want to open a new account, just go into any TD Bank branch. They seem to be all over the place. Tell them that you are a member of the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey and that we are participants in their Affinity Membership Program. That’s it. Done. They’ll take care of the rest. If you already have a TD Bank account? Even easier. They’ll look up your account and assign our code number to the account. Done. All the your information is kept strictly confidential and is not available to BTCNJ.
If you need more information, you can contact Frances Montagnino at 201-313-5217. You can also reach her on her cell phone at 201-218-6658. She is the Vice President of Business Development and was very instrumental in getting TD Bank to sponsor the Ramapo Rally.