CodeIgntier 3 using native sessions instead of CI's drivers - codeigniter

Question

Would this be the best way to use the native php sessions instead of using their drivers? Since their drivers are just wrappers around session functions; I figured this would be the easiest way.
The reason behind this is I am having issues with locking with mysql database driver and redis driver. I want to use native php sessions and swap in a redis driver at the php level.
This seems to work well. Any thoughts?
<?php
class MY_Session extends CI_Session
{
public function __construct(array $params = array())
{
$CI =& get_instance();
// No sessions under CLI
if (is_cli())
{
log_message('debug', 'Session: Initialization under CLI aborted.');
return;
}
elseif ((bool) ini_get('session.auto_start'))
{
log_message('error', 'Session: session.auto_start is enabled in php.ini. Aborting.');
return;
}
// Configuration ...
$this->_configure($params);
$this->_config['_sid_regexp'] = $this->_sid_regexp;
// Sanitize the cookie, because apparently PHP doesn't do that for userspace handlers
if (isset($_COOKIE[$this->_config['cookie_name']])
&& (
! is_string($_COOKIE[$this->_config['cookie_name']])
OR ! preg_match('#\A'.$this->_sid_regexp.'\z#', $_COOKIE[$this->_config['cookie_name']])
)
)
{
unset($_COOKIE[$this->_config['cookie_name']]);
}
session_start();
// Is session ID auto-regeneration configured? (ignoring ajax requests)
if ((empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) OR strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) !== 'xmlhttprequest')
&& ($regenerate_time = config_item('sess_time_to_update')) > 0
)
{
if ( ! isset($_SESSION['__ci_last_regenerate']))
{
$_SESSION['__ci_last_regenerate'] = time();
}
elseif ($_SESSION['__ci_last_regenerate'] < (time() - $regenerate_time))
{
$this->sess_regenerate((bool) config_item('sess_regenerate_destroy'));
}
}
// Another work-around ... PHP doesn't seem to send the session cookie
// unless it is being currently created or regenerated
elseif (isset($_COOKIE[$this->_config['cookie_name']]) && $_COOKIE[$this->_config['cookie_name']] === session_id())
{
setcookie(
$this->_config['cookie_name'],
session_id(),
(empty($this->_config['cookie_lifetime']) ? 0 : time() + $this->_config['cookie_lifetime']),
$this->_config['cookie_path'],
$this->_config['cookie_domain'],
$this->_config['cookie_secure'],
TRUE
);
}
$this->_ci_init_vars();
}
}