Flow gently . . .

MotorsEmissions: The glories of Freeflow

"Jingle Bells, traffic's Hell, Stuck in jams all day.

But, oh what's this? A Freeflow blitz?

Now everything's okay!"

Catchy, ain't it? Oh, but were it only true. No prizes for guessing I have a gripe with Operation Freeflow. For a start, could they not have named it something a bit snappier? It sounds like something a doctor would do to alleviate a hernia.

More importantly, why is it just for Christmas? Is it the measly few million a year it'd cost to implement year-round? Dragging 163 pink-cheeked gardaí out of their warm Templemore bunks in deepest Tipperagua and planting them at random Big Smoke crossroads makes nary a blind bit of difference to anything but Garda overtime bills. Operation Christmas Bonus anyone?

The traffic is even more soul-squeezingly demoralising during Freeflow than usual. People are talking of little else this week, clogging the nation's airwaves with traffic travails the likes of which would curl the toes of a stuffed haddock.

Even my great chum Joe Higgins is at it. He had fellow socialist Bertie on the braided ropes of the Dáil, bewildering him into submission with an onslaught over Freeflow's effect on his own slog through the gridlocked badlands of Blanchardstown. It was, even for Joe, a fairly surreal tirade. Maybe he was light-headed. I feel his pain. The air is fierce thin up here on the moral high ground.

The Bossling was bushwhacked by Biblical analogy. "Had the most famous stable in history been sited on the Blanchardstown roundabout, Mary and Joseph would have got quicker from Mulhuddart on their ass this morning than their unfortunate fellow travellers - and would have breathed fresh air all the way," intoned Comrade Higgins. Surprisingly, St Bartholomew of Drumcondra missed the opportunity to remind the Dáil that if anyone would know about being dragged around on his ass, it'd be Joe.

Mrs Emissions, a woman who drives a white van for a living, has a theory on Freeflow. She reckons motorists see the increased Garda presence and get too spooked to use their normal tactics, like skipping through ambers and nipping into empty bus lanes to turn left. But it's these little indiscretions, she says, that are the very grease required to keep the cogs of traffic moving, however slowly.

Everyone is now so worried about rubber-neckers gurning at them when they get pulled over for tickets by over-eager students trying to make a name for themselves, that they're all driving like Prozacked sheep and the whole kaboodle has ground to a halt. Therefore, she reckons, Operation Freeflow is self-defeating. I have to agree. If only because I have learned that Mrs Emissions is always right.

*******

Since I penned the above, I've had a change of heart.

I was stopped at traffic lights near Christchurch this morning, astride my trusty bipedal beastie. Light went green, right foot went down. Rather than propel me forward at great speed, my rear wheel decided to fall off. Honest. Over the handlebars with me and on to my back in the middle of the road, legs flapping like an epileptic turtle.

Christchurch is, as you may know, as gnarly as it gets traffic-wise. Normally, I would have been turned into human carpaccio. Not this time. The barely-pubescent garda manning the junction was so utterly distracted - possibly worrying about getting his letter to Santa off in time - that his inability to get the traffic flowing meant the motorists who would ordinarily have been trundling over me like a herd of hungry wildebeest were at a standstill, gawping in amusement at my predicament instead. I even managed a crooked giggle myself.

By his very incompetence, and by extension Operation Freeflow, my worthless life may have been saved. Jaysus, this humble pie isn't half bad with a bit of mustard on it.