My family has been mulling over the impending end of my trusty family car's COE. For those of you readers from outside of Singapore, a Certificate of Entitlement (COE) is probably one of the most expensive hurdle towards owning a car. Every month, the government releases a quota for the maximum number of vehicles that can be registered in Singapore as a way to control vehicle growth rates. To decide who should own this COE, locals have to outbid each other in a game of willingness-to-pay in order to get it. It's not hard to tell which demography tend to succeed in getting their hands on that coverted COE.
My family car is a no frills, bread and butter, Toyota Wish. What I really like about it is that it is able to do almost everything a family of 5 needs and it does all these without much of a hiccup. Give it a regular engine oil change every service interval and that is about all the attention it needs. Even nearing 10 years old, the car's fuel economy is still a fuel sipping 13.6km/l while taking the lowest octane rating of 92. Sure, it can't be compared to the latest German 7-seaters but hey, those cost a lot more to own.
But renewing a car's COE can also be quite prohibitive. Currently, the Prevailing Quota Premium stands at $50,900 and it has to be paid in one lump sum. In addition to that, we will also lose the rebate from the car's Preferential Additional Registration Fee of $10,300. These measures were put in place to discourage owners from keeping their old car for too long. Still, all these added up is still approximately 50% of the cost of a new similar car.
While Singapore's public transport system is continuously being improved, I can't help but feel that it only serves a certain aspect of my live well. Other than peak hours, waiting times for buses and trains increase dramatically. At certain times, I feel extremely annoyed having to sqeeze with everyone on the bus at 11pm on my way back from town when the road is ironically void of other vehicles. It might have been off peak hours for the road, but it was certainly peak hours for those commuters trying to get home before the midnight.
Another pet peeve is that public transport doesn't actually connect my place to some of my nearby amenities that would have been a short 5 min drive away. Sure, I get it - there is no demand, hence no service. But that doesn't mean that I do not have to get there. Surely I should not to be penalized for owning a car to take me on journeys that public transport serves poorly. Alas, such is life.
I don't think we will drive the family car to work every day as that would mean squeezing with the traffic, crawling around at snail speed. It is not only inefficient and wasteful, it also goes against good ecomonic sense and I suspect that there are increasing more people who would agree with me but would still choose to drive during peak hours as the depreciation costs are way too high to justify leaving the car sit at home.
If only the government would consider cars as a supplementary part of Singapore's transport landscape and only imposing penalities for using it during peak hours when public transport is running at its maximum capability instead of penalizing ownership of car. People will be more willing to leave their car at home and only use it during off peak hours when a car, or any private vehicle will shine.
For me, I'll consider driving it up north to Malaysia to visit lesser visited areas not so well served by public transport to make it worth the COE renewal. After all, this car is still capable of many many more miles ahead.
