IT'S hard to believe it when you're stuck in rush hour traffic but, even taking into account the horrors of the Westlink and the mind-boggling one-way systems in various town, drivers in Northern Ireland have it better than most places. Commuting time is relatively brief and much of the journey is spent wending through open countryside.
That's probably one of the reasons why Northern Ireland continues to boast the highest number of cars per head in the UK. So spare a thought for our Parisian cousins, for whom the daily drive to work is not only frustratingly tedious, but a threat to their health and that of everyone else in the city.
The French government this week imposed major traffic restrictions to deal with dangerously high pollution levels. Hundreds of police were on the boulevards to ensure compliance.
On Monday they were checking that only motorists with odd-numbered number plates were on les rues.
Those with even-numbered plates were then allowed to travel on Tuesday after success the day before led to a fall in pollution.
Ministers acted after air pollution exceeded safe levels for five days running in the capital and surrounding areas, Paris's internationally famous landmarks have been shrouded in smog.
A change in weather conditions has also had an effect on the recent improvement with a combination of cold nights and warm days preventing the pollution from dispersing.
The ban ran from 5.30am to midnight, with exceptions for taxis, commercial electric and hybrid vehicles and for cars carrying three or more passengers.
Police ticketed almost 4,000 people by midday on Monday, and 27 drivers had their cars impounded for refusing to cooperate with officers.
It was an impressive result, but I think the Paris authorities are clever to use this as a short term tactic, rather than introducing it as a new cure-all policy.
I say this, because it reminds me of one of my favourite stories from the time I spent living in Lagos.
The erstwhile Nigerian capital is essentially an archipelago, made up of several 'Islands' separated by creeks. We lived in the largely residential Victoria Island, travelling over a six-lane bridge to Ikoyi for school and work.
That bridge, like every other express-way in Lagos turned, twice a day, for hours on end into the world's largest car park.
It takes an average of two to three hours to travel 10-20 kilometres.
Nigerians love their cars and the bigger the better. I didn't even know that Peugeot manufactured models with digits below 04 until we moved back to Belfast, and if you really wanted people to know you had made it you drove a Mercedes Benz. However, that love for cars doesn't lead to careful 'Sunday driving' - far from it. Italian road chaos has nothing on Nigeria. Taxis drive with their horns permanently depressed and braking distance is regarded as an open invitation to bull your way in front.
People spend so long trapped in their cars in 80-odd degree heat that the expressways have turned into little villages, with hawkers collectively selling a selection of goods that are the equivalent of a large supermarket.
Variously dubbed 'go-slows' and 'hold-ups' by locals, analysts estimate they have led to the loss of thousands of man-hours, the waste of scarce fuel and the cause of massive environmental pollution.
It was against this backdrop that the Lagos State government decided to bring in the odd-and-even-number policy to deal with traffic congestion.
This required owners of vehicles with licence plates starting with even numbers to stay off the roads leading to Lagos Island on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, on which days their counterparts with odd numbers could ply the roads - and vice versa.
Taxis were exempt, as were government and diplomatic vehicles. As is happening in Paris now, it did initially reduce traffic, with violators fined on the spot.
However, Lagosians are nothing if not ingenious, and were not going to be driven off the road so easily.
Everyone, my family included, simply bought a second car with the necessary odd or even number plate. Simples.
You see, people will literally rather be roasted alive for hours on end than give up their cars. And I'm willing to bet it wouldn't take the car-loving people of Paris, and indeed Northern Ireland, long to come up with a similarly ingenious solution. email: olabimpearcher@googlemail.com