COE Prediction - June 2008 1st Bidding Exercise

The Great Singapore Sale has just started but authorized car dealers have not put out any superb discount to coax me into buying. The COE quota premium rebounded as I have expected from the drop in the May 1st bidding exercise. I see most dealers are holding the price steady for now. Thus, I do not expect much change in the upcoming exercise.
Prediction on May 28:
Category A: $15,000-16,000
Category B: $16,000-17,000

Verdict on June 4:
Category A: $14,590
Category B: $14,640

One Raffles Quay

S$0.80 (excluding GST) per 10 minutes block from Monday to Friday, 6.00am to 6.00pm and Saturday, 6.00am to 1.00pm.
S$3.00 per entry (excluding GST) for Monday to Friday after 6.00pm, Saturday after 1.00pm, Sunday and Public Holiday.

Season parking fee is S$300.00 (excluding GST)

As updated by Rayson Tan on May 20, 2008.

COE Prediction - May 2008 2nd Bidding Exercise

The fall in the COE Quota Premium in the last bidding exercise came as a surprise to me. It seems that the concern over the rapid inflation in Singapore hits home. With high oil price and rice price, the annual increment for most salaried motorists will not be enough to cover the increased expenditure.

If you have been shopping for a new car, you will notice that the car prices are not falling in tandem with the COE Quota Premium. An example - the Mazda 3 SP is priced at $53,xxx more than a year ago when Category A COE Quota Premium was at about S$11,000; the pricing now is $56,xxx - has inflation caused this increased in price?

There may be some buyers coming in with the reduced (but less than my expectation) price so the COE Quota Premium should increase marginally. Note that the bidding exercise starts on Tuesday May 20 instead of Monday May 19, Vesak Day and will end on Thursday May 22 4pm.

Prediction on May 18:
Category A: $12,000-13,000
Category B: $16,000-17,000

Verdict on May 22:
Category A: $15,701
Category B: $17,113

The Number Games

Number games are very important to most Singaporeans - many wish to be rich through 4-D, TOTO, Big Sweep and other games that Singapore Pools (and other illegal rivals) offer. It is inevitable that we are identified by numbers since computers are used in all public services and also private businesses. All of us have many identifiers and even our assets (or liability, I still cannot decide how to classify my car) like motor vehicles have identifier, also know as Vehicle Registration Number.

For motorists with deep pocket and a preferred number for their vehicles, LTA offers bidding for vehicle registration numbers. You can bid for a number for your new vehicle or existing ones. I know many motorists who decided to bid after receiving "lousy" system assigned numbers. So how much does the exercise cost? At least S$1,000 to bid for any number while the lucky numbers, the single-digit number and the low numbers will attract many bidders and thus, yield higher bids. There are also additional fees for retaining and exchanging Vehicle Registration Numbers between vehicles.

I was curious about how the suffix alphabet was computed and found the algorithm - each alphabet of the series yield an ASCII code (A = 65, B = 66, ...). Subtract it by 64 and multiple with a constant code for each position. Number value is also multiplied with a constant code. All the products are summed up and the remainder of the result when divided by 19 will yet the position of the 19-character string that determines the suffix. Check out the tool that illustrates how it is done.

If my name is Eric, I would love to have my Vehicle Registration plate showing "ER 1 C" but the alogorithm for the suffix alphabet turns up "T" so the legitimate plate is "ER 1 T". How about the intimidating "EV 1 L"? The legitimate plate is "EV 1 Y". Have you seen interesting Vehicle License plates?

Vehicle Registration Suffix

Current Version: 1.1 dated February 27, 2009

This worksheet helps you to compute the Suffix alphabet in the Vehicle Registration Plate. You should read the following post for more information:

• The Number Games

You can download the file SMVehicleRegistrationSuffixV11.xls (MS Excel format, 43 KB) from my Shared DropBox folder https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4kwkgarn1qw0bej/AAAd-NqSxLxoVw6g2u7WXL6Ta?dl=0

What about Vehicle Registration Prefix? Here is the listing from LTA.

Keep Alive Belt aka Safety/Seat Belt

I like this iconic logo - from the personal side, the heart signifies life and the belt protects it from harm in an accident and from a loved one's perspective, the belt over the heart signifies the desire to protect the loved one. The recent school mini bus accidents have certainly increased the awareness in the effectiveness of seat belts in saving lives when an accident occurs. Accidents are literally accidents i.e. the party at fault does not intend to hurt anyone but has lost control of the vehicle.

I was amused by the 14 year old boy's response after yesterday's accident, he said "I usually just get on the bus and fall asleep." Does he usually gets home and fall asleep without closing the door? No, it is second nature to us to shut and lock the door as we have valuables in our homes. Thus, we need to educate the young to fasten their seat belts when they get onto a motor vehicle unless they are asleep and carried onto the vehicle but that would then be the caregiver's fault.

Several members of parliament are going to lobby for a new law for seat belt on school buses. I support the motion and urge the authority to accelerate the matter to avoid any more unnecessary death or injury.