Road safety campaigners claim traffic lights aimed at slowing down vehicles aren’t working.
Signals on the A75 at either end of Springholm are supposed to turn to red if a car or lorry approaches at more than the 30mph speed limit.
However, residents Chris Wybrew and Dorothy King, organisers of the Springholm A75 Road Safety Campaign, claim cars and lorries are still whizzing through the lights as they head east towards Dumfries, despite being well above the limit.
But the public body responsible for the lights insists they are working correctly.
In a joint statement, the campaigners said: “In the past few weeks, it has become apparent to us, in the course of periodic video monitoring, that there are now an exceptionally high percentage of triggering drivers being unhalted by the eastbound signals.
“The reason for the sudden and very pronounced deterioration in the performance of these eastbound signals is because they no longer present red to any but the very slowest triggering drivers.
“The vast majority of triggering drivers are now seen not even to brake approaching the changing signals because amber presents when they are already effectively past the point of compliance.”
The lights were installed in 2017 after Mr Wybrew and Ms King pushed for road safety improvements, with their ultimate aim being a bypass.
Safety on the busy route came under the spotlight again following a serious accident in Crocketford last year.
The campaigners added: “We now have a situation where we are, in fact, in a worse position than before.
“This represents an utterly intolerable betrayal of the safety margin of highly vulnerable villagers in harm’s way 24/7 beside an international traffic flow that should have been bypassed many decades ago.
“Additionally, it also represents a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money that could and should have produced far more effective speed control had it not been so grossly watered down compared to the continental variants from which it was adapted.”
A spokesman for Amey, which looks after the A75, said: “The reverse speed discrimination signals were installed in December, 2017, as a pilot, following engagement with the community and are an innovative solution aimed to improve driver behaviour and manage traffic speeds through Springholm.
“Amey routinely check the signals at this location and they are operating as designed and installed.
“No changes have been made since their installation and their configuration remains the same.
“Our strategic road safety team continues to monitor the effect of the signals on traffic speed and the level of users who pass through a red signal.”
