Question

A car is behind a truck going 25 m/s on the highway. The car’s driver looks for an opportunity to pass, guessing that his car can accelerate at 1.0 m/s^2. He gauges that he has to cover the 20 m length of truck, plus10 m clear room at the rear of the truck and 10 m more at the front of it. In the oncoming lane, he sees a car approaching, probably also travelling at 25 m/s. He estimates that the car is about 400 m away, should he attempt the pass? Give details

Answer 1

No he should not attempt the pass

Step-by-step explanation:

Let t be the time it takes for the car to pass the truck. The driver should ONLY attempt to pass when the distance covered by himself plus the distance covered by the oncoming car is less than or equal 400 m (a near miss)

At acceleration of 1m/s2 and a clear distance of 10 + 20 + 10 = 40 m, we can use the following equation of motion to estimate the time t in seconds

`s = at^2/2`

`40 = 1t^2/2`

`t^2 = 80`

`t = √(80) = 8.94 s`

Within this time frame, the first car would have traveled a total distance of the clear distance (40m) plus the distance run by the truck, which is

8.94 * 25 = 223.6m

So the total distance traveled by the first car is 223.6 + 40 = 263.6m

The distance traveled by the 2nd car within 8.94 s at rate of 25m/s is

8.94 * 25 = 223.6 m

So the total distance covered by both cars within this time frame

223.6 + 263.6 = 487.2m > 400 m

So no, he should not attempt the pass as we will not clear it in time.