A car is a very precious thing in Singapore. The Certificate of Entitlement (COE, which allows you to own a car for 10 years) just shot up to S$119k for small cars and S$137k for larger cars.
When I read the news yesterday, I rolled my eyes at the ridiculous figure. But I wasn’t upset. Singapore is a small island and I understand the rationale to keep our car population low. I was also fortunate that I bought my Toyota Altis in 2009 and renewed the COE in 2019 when the certificate prices were much lower. When my COE expires in 2029, I will stop driving and take public transport. (And no more motorcycling, as I have promised my wife.)
But my peace with the COE system actually comes from a conversation I had in 1998 with Helen Tan, a wonderful lady who administered the entry writing test* for aspiring journalists at SPH Media. She said that she and her husband had decided to give up their car due to the high COE prices then.
She said, “Why should we pay so much to rent a hunk of metal with four wheels for 10 years?”
That one sentence completely changed my perspective on car ownership in Singapore. That’s perhaps one reason why I practice and teach communication today. Our well-crafted words can help people see things differently, even for contentious topics like the COE.
*Helen told me that her writing test had a 25% passing rate. I passed!
(Image generated by Google Whisk)