Top 5 1/2 Ways To Ease Your Daily Commute

With traffic volumes up across the city, everyone is experience longer journeys to and from work. There's a couple of simple things we can all do as drivers to make life a little easier not just for ourselves but for others.

1. Take a Rain Check.
Weather is one of the main variables that affects traffic. Check the weather forecast the night before and leave yourself extra time if necessary (around 45 minutes on a very wet day). On wet days less people use public transport and drivers, rightly, leave more space between each other. The knock on effect is that this extends queues and making it harder to get though traffic lights.

2. Keep An Eye On What's Happening In The City.
Everyone loves a gig, except when you get caught in traffic on the way there! If there's a big event happening in the city, familiarise yourself with which routes are likely to be affected. For example, when there's an event in the 3ARENA traffic tends to be heavier on the approaches from East Link and the North Quays. Taking the North Circular Road or the Malahide Road are both good options to avoid these delays.

3. The Most Direct Route Isn't Always The Quickest Route.
When planning your commute, keep in mind that there are generally multiple ways to get from A to B. On Live Drive, as well as reporting on the main arteries in and out of the city, we always keep a close eye on the smaller, less popular alternatives and may advise taking one of them based on the traffic. As a rule of thumb, perhaps learn three routes that you could feasibly take to give you wiggle room depending on the traffic. Constantly getting stuck on the canal every evening? Why not try taking Adelaide Rd and down to Leonard's Corner via Harrington St/South Circular Road? Geographically less direct, but generally better moving.

4. Avoid Rubbernecking.
This is a particular problem on the M50. While its tempting to slow down when you spot a collision off to the side of the road (particularly when there's flashing lights), all this does is slow down traffic (sometimes severely). The best (and safest) course of action if it isn't affecting any of your lanes is to keep your eyes on the road and let Emergency Services do their job.

5. Merge With Care.
Indicating, merging and driving at a consistent speed all contribute to better traffic flow. With recent reports suggesting that the M50 is experiencing 29% rise in traffic volume from the boom years, smooth and safe merging is more vital than ever. While merging, don't forget to adjust your speed accordingly, find a suitable gap in the traffic, and indicate in good time. If cars stayed in both lanes and merged at the very end one by one like a zipper, fewer lane changes are made which is safer and it reduces backlog. .

5.5 Of course this one is easy, keep listening to LiveDrive!
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