im on a75 6 nights a week+early mornings i agree with member scania 245 we all know about our irish cousins 
worst time for me is 8-9am in the morning car drivers going to work in dumfries leaving at the last minute 
impatience is an under statement all for a few seconds
I used to drive a Bedford TK along the A75 in 1972 and the Irish drivers blew you off the road then. Ther wasn’t more than 100yards of straight road between Dumfries and Stranraer.
ajt:
Yes folk shouldnt take chances but you have to ask yourself if youve got 20 odd vehicles behind you and folk start to get a bit restless with their actions, isnt it time to shift over into a layby for a couple of seconds?
With all due respect… 
In an ideal world this is a good idea. I’ve seen just this type of behaviour travelling in mountainous roads in Spain where HGV’s would pull in to let cars go by when they’re on a long climb.
However, in this world (poor quality and congested road Britain), it takes very little time to accumumate 20+ cars when you’re sticking to 40 and they’re doing 60 (or more). Therefore, you’d need to be pulling into a laybe every five minutes or so in order to avoid annoying the line of cars behind you, that is of course, until they speed past you once you’ve pulled in and then they’ve had to slow back down again because they’re now hanging on the bumper of the next lorry they meet, the lorry that you were following and kept a safe distance from.
That is, of course, assuming that you actually manage to find a layby which is clear enough for you to pull into, if you can even find a layby at that isn’t full of foreign drivers on their weekly rest.
So if you did find a place to stop and utilised it, then you’ve got the problem of pulling out of the layby onto the carriageway when you’ve got a load on board. You put your indicator and wait to find a gap in the traffic during which you can rejoin the carriageway, but it takes a good minute minute or so to get back up to 40mph depending on terrain (and if you’ve got a useless auto gearbox like my lorry) and so by that time, you’ve accumulated another 20 cars which are hanging on your bumper so therefore you have to find another layby and repeat the process again.
It’s a good suggestion in theory but not in practise because there are so many other factors.
Alternatively, if the authorities weren’t so retarted in their logic and if professional drivers could be trusted to use their judgement of road conditions, then increasing the speed of the lorry up to 50mph on certain stretches would be a wise compromise.
There are single carriageway roads out there where it would be safer to do 50 than it would be to do 50 on certain dual carriageway roads that I’ve driven on. It’s this dumbass “one rule fits all” attitude that our government use that is failing us in this situation and many others.
Out of interest, what’s the speed limit for HGV’s on single carriageways in France (unless otherwise stated)? I’d love to know as I’ve never been stuck behind a line of lorrys doing any less than 50mph, even when passing the “Gendarmes” on motorbikes at the side of the road. Yes - I know that they have much better quality roads generally speaking but there are some single carriageways in this country that are of equally good quality on which perhaps raising the speed limit should at least by trialed.
I think it all depends on the road your on, how much traffic is behind etc etc.
Any lorry sticking to the limit will always end up with a few vehicles behind them but sometimes this level can get way above acceptable. Its at this point a driver should possibly think about moving over if a decent chance is available. On the road in question, there is ample places to pull in.
A76 towards Ayr and thats a shocker of a road with limited overtaking opportunities for cars and even more limited laybys for trucks to move in so its just a case of everyone having to be patient.
I cant honestly see the good it does limiting a truck to a maximum of 40 on a A road. If anything i belive it makes a road a even more dangerous place to be for the mentioned risks of frustration. When a human gets impatient and frustrated all rational thinking goes out the window and ends up being a danger to themselfs and other road users.
Heres a good pic I quoted from that DumfriesCruise site I asked the ques on:-
Zippy-v-172:
Your just as bad sat at 50! Stop being gay and get it fired up to 70 like the Irish ferry lot icon_lol (joke)
My two and only speeding convictions were on the A75, 30 years ago, 1 week apart 
And when I attended the procurator fiscals department I was told that the Polis in Dumfries and Galloway took a very dim view of speeding trucks.
I later learnt that the daughter of the then chief constable was injured or killed or something in a crash with a speeding truck. UMA? (Urban Myth Alert) 
McPlod:
Could you advise who or what your source is for this?
Yes i can, It came to me in a dream. 
Should have been chaned to 50mph years ago since the A75 is classed as a euro-route or at least be dual carraigeway the entire lenght, recieved my one and only speeding ticket on there in a scania 143 450 doing 55mph at 38 tonnes pre limiter days,(or the good old days) copper said another 5 mph and it would have been straight to Dumfries court house,(do they still do that for over 60 mph?) got away with £60 fine and 3 points lol, very rare for me to be in that neck of woods now but always tried to keep up with our irish cousins across there as they seemed to know where to police were.
ajdavis64:
Should have been chaned to 50mph years ago since the A75 is classed as a euro-route or at least be dual carraigeway the entire lenght, recieved my one and only speeding ticket on there in a scania 143 450 doing 55mph at 38 tonnes pre limiter days,(or the good old days) copper said another 5 mph and it would have been straight to Dumfries court house,(do they still do that for over 60 mph?) got away with £60 fine and 3 points lol, very rare for me to be in that neck of woods now but always tried to keep up with our irish cousins across there as they seemed to know where to police were.
Not surprised the traffic cops there are well known for being harsh.
ajdavis64:
Should have been chaned to 50mph years ago since the A75 is classed as a euro-route or at least be dual carraigeway the entire lenght, recieved my one and only speeding ticket on there in a scania 143 450 doing 55mph at 38 tonnes pre limiter days,(or the good old days) copper said another 5 mph and it would have been straight to Dumfries court house,(do they still do that for over 60 mph?) got away with £60 fine and 3 points lol, very rare for me to be in that neck of woods now but always tried to keep up with our irish cousins across there as they seemed to know where to police were.
Aye twenty over the limit and your not going home sir. Spend many a happy night down the 75 as fast as she will go! Makes a welcome break after sitting on the motorway for hours. Gives you a chance to do some proper driving - Irish style!
It’s a great feeling to be part of a covoy flying down that road… Always on the CB to know where the ‘Big Car’ and the ‘County Mounties’ are
Remember - 75 is the target!
Breaker One-Nine:
ajdavis64:
Should have been chaned to 50mph years ago since the A75 is classed as a euro-route or at least be dual carraigeway the entire lenght, recieved my one and only speeding ticket on there in a scania 143 450 doing 55mph at 38 tonnes pre limiter days,(or the good old days) copper said another 5 mph and it would have been straight to Dumfries court house,(do they still do that for over 60 mph?) got away with £60 fine and 3 points lol, very rare for me to be in that neck of woods now but always tried to keep up with our irish cousins across there as they seemed to know where to police were.Aye twenty over the limit and your not going home sir. Spend many a happy night down the 75 as fast as she will go! Makes a welcome break after sitting on the motorway for hours. Gives you a chance to do some proper driving - Irish style!
It’s a great feeling to be part of a covoy flying down that road… Always on the CB to know where the ‘Big Car’ and the ‘County Mounties’ areRemember - 75 is the target!
driving irish style half drunk /talking to the convoy microphon in the left hand/ having an argument with the wife on the mobile in the right hand . REAL DRIVING.
20 above the limit + crash -fatality? =jail
There was a recovery firm in Stranraer who had a gallery section with numerous HGV accidents on the A75. Not sure of the web address but might be worth a look.
Rubbish - the A75 truck speed limit isnt going up to A75. This has been confirmed by a serving officer within the RPU of Dumfries and Galloway police.
Infact there is actually a clamp-down on speeding trucks, been a high police presence on the A75 recently!
The gallery of HGV incidents is here: stranraerrecoveryservices.co … allery.htm
Notice that it seems to be mainly irish trucks…
dave:
i cant see that happening. the government want to lower the national speed limit from 60 to 50 and yet put the limit up for trucks to 50 on just one road. cant see it.
whats wrong with sitting at 40. steady day.
It actually makes sense.
Think of when the 40 limit was introduced. Power steering was a luxury, brakes were terrible, no ABS, poor or non existent driver training, virtually non existent enforcement of driving hours.
Also, most of the recorded data on speeds shows the majority of HGVs breaking the 40 limit of a SC NSL and the 50 limit of a NSL DC BUT the majority complying with reduced limits for all vehicles. It also shows that HGV accidents continue to be the lowest of any road user group and that despite the high amount of speeding, accident rates haven’t increased. There is also plenty of accident data showing that unsuitable overtaking of slower vehicles (usually lorries) due to frustration is contributory to accidents. More speed data shows that the average speed for cars on a SC NSL road is actually 45MPH AFAIR.
So, up the lorries to 50 MPH, reduce the cars to 50MPH and it solves a whole load of issues.
Gets my thumbs up.
McPlod:
20 above the limit + crash -fatality? =jail
Good answer. Irish driving take note.
That road should have be a dual carriageway the entire stretch. But could you imagine the carnage on that road if all the ferry traffic was to sit at 40mph? Think of a convoy of 70 or so lorries travelling at 40mph.
I seen it one night when an Engish lorry was one of the first off the boat. There was a queue literally as far as you could see the road. The cars were taking some very very dangerous chances having to overtake a line of lorries. I was surprised that no one was mangled that night.
In the end one driver actually phoned the firm he was driving for and told his transport manager to call his driver and get him to pull over into a layby and let the queue pass. Which he did - at Dumfries, nearly at the end of the 75.
Now you think. There is a sailing on P&O every two hours in each direction and much the same on Stena. If every lorry was to abide by the speed limit then that road would be one long queue of trucks in either direction. Good job it’s not Englishmen are not the predominant users of that road.
Breaker One-Nine:
That road should have be a dual carriageway the entire stretch. But could you imagine the carnage on that road if all the ferry traffic was to sit at 40mph? Think of a convoy of 70 or so lorries travelling at 40mph.I seen it one night when an Engish lorry was one of the first off the boat. There was a queue literally as far as you could see the road. The cars were taking some very very dangerous chances having to overtake a line of lorries. I was surprised that no one was mangled that night.
In the end one driver actually phoned the firm he was driving for and told his transport manager to call his driver and get him to pull over into a layby and let the queue pass. Which he did - at Dumfries, nearly at the end of the 75.
Now you think. There is a sailing on P&O every two hours in each direction and much the same on Stena. If every lorry was to abide by the speed limit then that road would be one long queue of trucks in either direction. Good job it’s not Englishmen are not the predominant users of that road.
100% agree.
The folk who cause the problems on that road whether it be HGVs, vans, or even cars are the ones going slow NOT the ones motoring it on!
Suprised the English driver didnt get a going over for that lol
I delivered to stranraer a few years ago, running back to Shap empty, no rush I think, so set away at about 45 within 15 minutes I pass a police car going the other way, thought nowt about it, but he turned round anf followed me for miles. Set the speed limiter at 41 from then on, and pulled over when the faster ones came up behind. TBH it wasn’t that hard, and gave me an incite on how easy it could be for the ‘trolley dollys’ if they just used their heads, and let others get on at their chosen pace.