I am standing here with a guilty conscience to confess my sins.

When I lived in the city centre I used to use the bus lane almost every day.

Now before I get attacked let me just say, I know it is selfish, I know it is an asshole thing to do, and I don't think I'm somehow entitled to something that the rest of us arent, but there's a few reasons I used to say to myself in an attempt to justify my actions.

Firstly, driving in the city centre is a joke. I think i remember reading it's the most congested city in Europe. It definitely feels like it anyway. I'm not going to pretend I know why this is or suggest how they fix it, but something should be done to alleviate the traffic situation. And unfortunately I can't start cycling or getting public transport as I need a van full of tools and supplies for work.

I lived near the IFSC and worked out near the M50, terrible planning on my part but it wasn't a matter of choice, my workplace moved from a small place near the city to a bigger industrial unit in Ballymount.

So after being stuck on the M50 in that traffic, then I had to get from Palmerstown out towards the docks, the entire length of the Northside of the Quays, which was even worse. At rush hour my commute was at least 90 minutes, sometimes more, but doing the night shift and coming home at 5am it was only about 20 minutes. That's over an hour of traffic each way. If you take 8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, and 2 hours of the remaining 8 is just from traffic, then over 25 percent of my free time was taken up solely by traffic. Not taking into account the time it actually takes to travel that far, just the increased travel time from the traffic.

And the reason is because of the planning. They keep making it worse for drivers and prioritising buses instead of trams or trains. The roads are constantly getting smaller from buses and bus lanes and cycle lanes and although I get why they want to discourage driving, and agree with having better infrastructure that isn't based around cars, it's not being done well and it's a bit of a shit situation for the people who have to drive.

The other reason is I just never got caught. I drove past Garda all the time and just kept my head down. And even if I did get caught one day I'd happily have paid the fine to get that much of my time back instead of sitting in traffic.

So yeah after about a year I just said fuck it and used the bus lane. Changed my life for the better, like noticeably. Having an extra hour in the morning and an extra hour in the evening greatly improved my daily life. I don't live in the city centre anymore and to be honest the traffic situation is one of the many reasons I moved. When they added the extra bus and cycle lanes at the start of the pandemic I got outta there.

Anyway I'm not really defending why I used to do it, I knew it was wrong, but the risk to reward ratios were heavily screwed in favour of risking it in the bus lane.