The purpose of COE is to reduce traffic congestion. Otherwise we will get traffic jam.
Even without COE, the cost of motoring will still be high and unaffordable for most peoplle. That's because the cost of parking will go up. Do you know that the cost of parkng is low here because our car population is relatively low?
Take a look at parking in other first world cities:
http://www.autonet.ca/en/2013/08/05/the-most-expensive-parking-in-the-world
I will pick a few examples
Parking per month in various cities
London US$1084
Hong Kong US$745
Perth US$717
The cost of parking in Golden Shoe carpark is S$300 per month.
So London is about S$1,000 more expensive than Singapore. 10 years of parking comes up to $120,000. That is more expensive than COE. (I use 10 years because COE allows you to drive the car for 10 years.)
So even without COE, I think most of us will not want to drive because parking will become more expensive.
The difference is that the money goes to the government instead of car park owners. They are the ones who should complain and not us.
World peace.