No feelings hurt here, just more of the same....used to it. and you are right that you dont have the land so you sold you vehicles because you did not want to ride illegally.I think that goes for everyone here that rides, BUT you ask:
why was it so important to the ATV groups to have the legislation include a rebound clause that could wind up negating the entire bill? Registration of motor vehicles is nothing new in this state. Yes they collect money from the public but they also protect the owners from theft. Without registration and tags, anyone could steal and ride without detection. Fines for illegal use are also nothing new. I can't tell you how many times people tore up our fields without my permission. I`ll tell you because the user group or decades has been told that you will get legal areas to ride and it just never happens period, we had Chatsworth with a ten year non renewable lease, we had Bradley Campbell`s 2002 policy directive stating 2 new including Chatsworth 3 total would be open by 2005, we now have ZERO, we have this legislation which calls for 3 areas in NJ passed and signed in January 2010, we still have not even located the first park...... There has been a call for parks going back at least 20 or more years just check NJ Trails Plan or the SCORP plan going back...
Yes registration is a good thing for the reasons you state:theft etc.. but unlike a car that you register and have streets and highways to use, or a boat where you have lakes etc. to use, just what is it that we get for our registration dollars?
?a larger fine
You also ask or state:My feeling is that if you aren't doing anything illegal, you shouldn't have any reason to worry about what the fines are. But you fail to realize there are no, zero legal venues ion NJ so in essence all is illegal. Kinda like taxation without representation huh???
I am all for law enforcement but you have a substantial,legitimate and mostly law abiding user group that only wants sufficient legal venues and will pay for that.(As evidenced in the additional $10 fee in the bill which I added to the bill, although they switched its intended use)
You also ask:
So where does that leave us? Enviro groups fighting with user groups while the legislation that took years to pass is lost. You can bet your @%$# that the next bill won't be so user group friendly and will probably have even stiffer fines without the rebound clause. Is that what we really want? I realize that the ATV groups are suffering and frustrated but this is New Jersey not PA or Upstate NY. The park in NJ may have to be a smaller one, one that people can take their kids to learn how to ride so they can handle the larger trails in other states. I think that would be a good start. Am I being too naive? I would like to think that we are all setting aside our own needs to help this State maintain what we have now for future generations. At least that is where I'm at. Again, I'm sorry if my views hurt anyone's feelings.
The reason it took year is because the anti-access crowd continued to go to the agencies and have policy directives etc. passed to prevent motorized use, so we/I the motorized users took it to the legislators.
I am not worried about the bill expiring and getting redone with less user friendly, I will be there the whole way through and that will not happen..
You realize groups are suffering, but this is NJ....What does that mean
There is plenty of areas either previously disturbed or not sensitive or little to no sensitive parts but they still come upon resistance, like we want to reforest or this or that.
The issue of a small park as I previously said is out of the question for me anyway, it is a recipe to fail. It will be like this ...we build a 100 acre park after proper buffering etc. we have 60 acres of usable area which is about 3 hours of time on the trail, well eventually because its only 3 hours folks want something more and start to wander of the prescribed area,also it cannot accommodate more than a couple hundred people at a time(our population is well over a couple hundred thousand) and then the anti-access crowd will yell and scream saying see we let them have this legal area and they still wandered off so they just want to ride illegal so we have to make stronger laws and totally ban use of OHV in NJ .
the best way to "help this State maintain what we have now for future generations" is to mange a state OHV program that can work it is done in dozens of states in the country and can be done in NJ...I am involved in a national organization and see it in states all over it works, but some will not accept it..
Some quick facts, OHV in NJ employs over 3000 people, and pays a ton of sales , income and other taxes to the state.
Many of these OHVs are purchased out of state where sales tax is not collected, because New Jersey has failed to provide this very large segment of society access to state managed land which we`ve all paid for.
Whys is that? Because without a OHV registration program New Jersey residents buy the majority of their OHVs out of state where sales tax is not collected, because it`s your states responsibility to collect the sales tax at the time the vehicle is registered and without a OHV registration program no one registers their OHVs.
How much sales tax does New Jersey loose? If you took half of New Jersey`s OHVs population, a good guess would be that 150,000 OHVs were purchased out of state at $5000 dollars each(which is the low end). With New Jersey sales tax being 7% that adds up to $625,000,000 million dollars that New Jersey is missing out on.
Not just that, but New Jersey businesses lost out on more than $750,000,000 million in sales each year because of out of state OHV sales, which adds up to a lot of jobs as well as real estate and business taxes.
What we all seem to all forget is New Jerseys has one of the best open space programs in the country, We as residents of the state support open space preservation and that is one of the reasons this is such a nice state to live in.
That open space preservation program goes to purchase soccer fields, baseball fields, golf courses, horse farms and horse parks, beaches, state forest, state wildlife land as well as dedicated nature preserves for special interest groups like the Audubon society, NJ Conservation Foundation, The Natural Land Trust and many many more.
If the state really wants to do something productive and raise badly need income as well a solve the state OHV problem then you`d think they would embrace the OHV community at least a little...
enough rambling I need to go to work..
