This is absolute craziness. Cars are already taxed at 100% (in the form of the Additional Registration Fees), and while this has come down from 130% or 140% in the past, the price of COE is more than making up for that reduction.

The $78K COE lasts you 10 years. That means, it depreciates at $650 a month, or in other words, it is costing you $650 a month for that right to own a car. Cat ‘A’ COEs are slightly cheaper, but at $57,009, it still works out to about $475 a month for the right to own a car. That’s like a lot of money, considering that you still haven’t even counted the rest of the cost of the car itself. Then, don’t forget the cost of using the car: road taxes, insurance, servicing, ERP, car park charges, fuel, etc.

It just seems so unlikely for COE prices to be skyrocketing when our economy doesn’t look particularly bright this year. Just who are buying cars these days? Even though public transport fares are up, taxi charges are up, surely these are not reasons for pushing people into buying cars. The enormous rise in COE prices is far too disproportionate.

I’m not against taking public transport. I take public transport myself quite often. But I also feel that every family needs a car. The car doesn’t have to be driven everyday, but there are certainly many occasions when having a car would have been a lot more practical and convenient.

Owners whose cars are reaching 10 years now are probably in a predicament. Should they buy a new car at these sort of bewildering prices, or switch to public transport?

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Okay, so let’s cut to the chase. The re-registration value, or what we commonly refer to as scrap value, is made up of two parts: the PARF (Preferential Additional Registration Fee) rebate and the COE rebate.

Let’s talk about COE rebate first, since it is simpler. The COE rebate is the money you get back on the portion of COE you have not used on your current car. The rebate is a simple linear prorated sum of the original quota premium (or the lesser of the quota premium of the corresponding category of your car from the same tender exercise if your car was registered with the “Open” category COE). So for example, if there is 60 months left on your COE that cost $50K, the COE rebate is $25K (60 / 120 months x $50K).

PARF rebate is complicated because it has been changing over the years. Let’s talk about the more common cases first. This table applies for cars registered with COEs from the May 2002 tender exercise onwards:

The ARF (Additional Registration Fee) of the vehicle will be stated in the logcard. The ARF has been changing over the years too, and it is pegged to a % of the OMV:

The PARF rebate for vehicles registered with COEs before the May 2002 tender exercise:

Example: Vehicle registered on 1 Dec 2008 with COE of $4889. OMV = ARF = $21000. To de-register on 1 Mar 2012.

COE rebate: Used 3 years 3 months, remaining 81 months out of the 10 years COE. So, 81 / 120 x $4889 = $3300.

PARF rebate: Vehicle is under 5 years old. 75% x $21000 = $15750.

Total rebate: $3300 + 15750 = $19050.

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It’s not like the YOG buses are emergency vehicles such as fire engines, ambulances or police cars. It’s just regular chartered transport to ferry people from place to place. Sure, they are guests to our country, but still, it’s not like they are VVIPs that everyone else needs to get out of their way.

I’m not saying I don’t want to give way. I probably will. I’m just asking if they could make the give way signs more friendly. See my suggestion. Just add a simple word. “Please”. It’s not going to take up any more space on the sign. If you ask nicely, perhaps more drivers will make way.

“Courtesy is for free. Courtesy is for you and me, and YOG…”

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Interestingly, while the car park, at least on this floor, was almost full, these two green lots remained unoccupied. It seems like not many green motorists visit this place.

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Often times, I see pedestrians walking on roads. One of the possible reason is that the footpaths are interrupted repeatedly by driveways into private landed properties, and which sometimes are occupied by vehicles, thus causing inconvenience to pedestrians having to weave in and out around them. Or perhaps the footpaths are not straight enough, not level enough, not wide enough, etc. Never mind all that.

Some pedestrians, however, simply forget they are on a road or crossing a road. Or they take it for granted that motorized vehicles will give way to them. For example, the other day, while I was walking towards a traffic junction, coming to a stop because it was “red” for me, I saw a jogger zipping past me, in the same direction, right into the crossing. He didn’t even slow down, pause to look for traffic (yeah, perhaps you can argue that he could have surveyed the traffic before reaching the junction, but obviously he failed to do so in this case), but simply jogged across the junction as if the road wasn’t there. Then, it so happened that a pick-up truck came along, had to jam brakes, to avoid this jogger. He was startled for a second, but then simply continued to complete the crossing, without so much as to apologize for having caused panic to the driver.

Then just this morning, this time I was driving, a pedestrian wearing a pair of earphones, strolled in the middle of a road. First of all, I think all pedestrians should learn this basic thing: For goodness sake, you need your ears to hear traffic. Please don’t put on any earphones or headphones when you are near the road. So, anyway, obviously this pedestrian was oblivious to my car behind him. I got impatient after a while and gently-as-I-could sounded my horn. He turned around, startled, then gave the kind of unfriendly look as if you say “what’s your problem”. Hello, this is a road.

It’s particularly a problem on smaller roads, car parks, private estates, etc, where some (too many) pedestrians simply don’t care about the difference between footpaths and roads. It’s almost as if they’ve decided they belong on the road and deserve to share the road with motorized vehicles. Perhaps they are inspired by the cyclists’ fight to share the road.

I think, we need some pedestrian education.

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The last couple of months, the issue of cyclists has cropped up many times in our media. Should they be sharing footpaths with pedestrians, or should they share the roads with motorized vehicles?

On footpaths, cyclists could be a threat to pedestrians. On the roads, cyclists are threatened by fast-moving motorized vehicles. Everyone’s talking about how there could be a win-win situation. In Tampines, they’ve decided to share footpaths. Elsewhere, cyclists are expecting to share the roads.

I am not fundamentally against the idea of cyclists on the roads, but I think many cyclists do not deserve to be on the roads. That’s why I’ve got to mention that I was a regular cyclist before. I’m also a driver. I think I have a balanced view from both sides, and I think, our cyclists have an attitude problem. Not all, but a fair representation of them. Alright, I’m not saying that drivers are not to blame, but I believe their attitudes towards cyclists have remained largely the same over the years. That’s not the same for cyclists.

Back when I was cycling, I was mindful of drivers. As dangerous as it might have been for cyclists, I think cyclists and motorized vehicles shared the roads quite well.

But today, it seems cyclists have decided that they have rights and are determined to claim their space on the roads. The attitudes have changed their riding habits. They are taking up whole lanes, cycling 2 abreast, taking up whole lanes on the rightmost or centre of a multi-line road, making turns from the wrong lanes, making brave attempts to overtake motorized vehicles only to slow down the vehicle they had just overtaken, etc.

It is just totally ridiculous. When I look at some of these cyclists ride, it shows that the cyclists actually do think they have an absolutely equal right to be on the road just like a motorcycle. Never mind that they are not licensed, they don’t pay road tax, they are not insured, and they are not equipped with safety gear. But they want to ride more wildly, albeit far far slower, than a motorcyclist.

Before we can have cyclists co-exist with pedestrians or motorized vehicles, cyclist must learn to be more friendly with the people whose space they want to share. At least, until we have a cycling lane, its either a footpath or a road.

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I think the way Google Maps shows traffic information is probably the most convenient interface. Combined with location information, the map can automatically zoom in on your current location and show you traffic conditions around you. You can also easily browse over the areas where you plan to travel through.

Right now, Google Maps show colour coded roads that indicate the traffic condition. Simple and concise. There are just two problems with it, imho.

1. The accuracy of the information. I suppose the data being fed into Google Maps just isn’t accurate enough.
2. I’m sure if there is some description of what red, yellow and green means. I know, red is worse than yellow, which in turn is worse than green. But can we translate that into more definitive terms? Maybe even show the average travel speed on that stretch of road.

I’m sure all these will be very handy inputs to route planning, particularly when drive navigation is introduced for Google Maps in Singapore.

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This Tap & Cross is actually to enable elderly pedestrians, with their privileged EZ-Link cards, to tap at the pedestrian crossing to get extended walk times at the crossing. In this way, the standard pedestrian crossing times can be shortened for to cater for the average adult, without holding up traffic unnecessarily unless an elderly pedestrian needs to cross the street.

What would be yet more interesting is for drivers to “buy” green time at traffic lights. Develop some mechanism such that a driver held up at a red light can tap, or in some other way commit to the transaction, to expedite changing to a green light. There may be a bunch of vehicles waiting at the red light, whoever feels the most urgency to turn it green to “pay”, turn the light green, and everyone at the junction then gets to cross. This might be useful on lesser used roads meeting up with a major road when the former gets very little green time.

We can even go further. Drivers cruising down the road could “pay” for a green wave so that the green light is always in his favour as far as is practicable. This would of course be a very useful functionality for emergency vehicles, something that I believe hasn’t been very widely deployed in Singapore (I keep seeing ambulances caught up in traffic junctions). Once you’ve got the infrastructure working for emergency vehicles, it could well extend to drivers to can afford to pay.

Yes, this is the age of consumerism: pay and pay for everything you want and wish for. We are already paying for the right to buy a car, I’m sure the rest of the ideas here are not horribly far-fetched.

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My Honda Stream is officially rated for 7.1 l/100km. That translates to about 14 km/l, for those (including myself) more familiar with the other common metric. Impressive! It is actually better than the similar engine sized Honda Civic 1.8, which is rated for 7.2 l/100km.

You can check NEA’s Fuel Economy Labeling database.

I’ve learnt to never trust the manufacturer’s fuel economy specifications. They seem too optimistic than what is possible with real world driving conditions in Singapore. Many factors are important: driving conditions, engine oil, fuel, tyre pressure, vehicle load, driving pattern (the “heaviness” of the driver’s foot), etc.

But when a national standard for fuel economy labeling is mandated, I thought we would get something realistic for Singapore’s driving condition. The numbers that meet NEA’s blessings, however, still fall far short of the actual fuel economy that I can achieve with my driving.

7.1 l/100km for a Honda Stream is really pretty good, if only that is what I actually get on my car.

Nevertheless, a national standard for fuel economy labeling will make it much easier to make comparison between cars. It’s a good thing to have.

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The curbs in Singapore are built too high. It is somebody’s smart idea that high curbs improve pedestrian safety, because it makes it more difficult for a car to accidentally mount a curb and collide with a pedestrian. I wonder if it has actually been shown statistically or otherwise that the high curbs do (or not) in fact make a significant difference in vehicle-pedestrian collision rate.

One thing for sure is that many other developed countries have gotten by with much lower curbs. (I don’t know about the vehicle-pedestrian collision rate in those countries of course.)

I wonder about the cost of all the damage caused to cars due to excessively high curbs.

Thankfully I still have touch-up paint. But my dainty paint brush has gone missing. So after giving the car a quick wash, I applied some touch-up paint using tissue paper. It touched-up area looks quite rough, but that is also partly because the plastic has really been scratched rough. It looks like it might need some hard polishing to smoothen out the area. I think I will save that for another time.

My Honda Stream is “stock”. No additional body kit or what not. But it already cannot clear many curbs. It must be so much more difficult for others who have add-on body kits.

Somebody should invent a mechanism to help determine whether the car will clear the curb height. It is going to be a pretty useful device.

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