How do you travel to and from work? Either by car, commercial refrigerated van or by moped from Leinster Road, Rathmines, to St Stephen's Green, depending on whether I am going to an appointment out of town, preparing for a catering event or doing administrative work in the office.
How long does it take? By car or van, it takes 25 minutes - I don't travel in rush hour if I can help it. By moped, irrespective of the time, weather or traffic, it takes five minutes.
What time do you leave home? It depends on what the day's like. If I have a catering event at lunchtime, I leave home about 9 a.m.
What time do you arrive back home? As I am not married with children, I don't have any set pattern. I avoid the traffic in the evening and go for a swim in town so I'm home about 8 p.m. If I have an evening catering event, I might not be home until midnight.
Do you travel the same route every day? Mostly, although I do vary the journey on the moped, choosing the scenic route along the canal when I can.
What do you enjoy about your commute? I travel about 50 per cent of the time by moped and that's what I enjoy. I enjoy the freedom of driving through the breeze on the moped. It improves your train of thought. Also, when I am on the moped, I arrive at work and leave work 100 per cent relaxed because I know I will not be subjected to horrendous traffic.
And because the bike is an automatic, you can sit back and it drives you there. I see people stressed out in traffic every day and for just €6 petrol a week, I glide by on the moped.
What bothers you most about your commute? I hate driving the car or van through an abundance of earth-moving machines and a litany of traffic.
One thing that really bothers me is those lurid yellow clamps. Seeing people's cars clamped in off peak times especially on Sundays (and on Good Friday) makes me wonder where society is heading.
Would you change your mode of transport if you could? No, I'm very happy with what I have.
How could your journey be improved? If more people bypassed four wheels and travelled on two. The size of Dublin doesn't merit the traffic problems it has.
In conversation with Sylvia Thompson
Traffic Gripe
My gripe is with the column Commuter Belt (above). Unfortunately, the vast majority of commuters do not fall into the category of people you select. The column features people who walk or cycle to work or who work outside normal business hours and never have to face the M50 at 8.45 a.m. And it doesn't feature commuters making their way from Dundalk through the daily bottleneck in Drogheda or motorists coming from Carlow, Tullamore or Longford to Dublin or even bus commuters sitting in the No 45 in the now one-lane N11 at Loughlinstown. Why not interview these people?
- Tom Redmond
E-mail trafficgripes@irish-times.ie or write to Traffic Gripes, Features Dept, The Irish Times, 11-15 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2
