Speed, traction, visibility, lighting, vehicle condition, attentiveness of
the operators, skill of the operators. Too many factors to consider to be
able to come up with a distance that would be optimal for both safety and
for security, which would be the reason for wanting them to be as close
together and as fast moving as is practicably possible. Sorry, no easy
answer to this one. I'd hate to be the officer responsible for a
quantifiable solution to this problem. Too close together, more accidents.
Too far apart, more security risk.


"Andy Mai" <mai@meeker.ucar.edu> wrote in message
news:dmko6q$afj$1@meeker.ucar.edu...
> Sorry about the OT, but I can't find what I'm looking for in Google.
>
> A friend of mine, a Colonel in the US Army stationed in Iraq,
> has noticed that the convoys are experiencing too many rear-end
> collisions. In a recent such incident three soldiers were trapped
> inside a burning truck and died.
>
> The Army teaches them to maintain 100 meters between vehicles going
> 50 kph (~30 mph). These vehicles are carrying huge payloads of several
> tons each. There is a gunner at the rear of each vehicle covering the
> following vehicle. The gunner sometimes motions the driver of that
> vehicle to move in closer.
>
> I do not want to start a big thread here. The only question I want to
> focus on is this: Is there a website which shows a mathematical model
> of vehicles traveling in a convoy which takes into account varying
> distances between vehicles.
>
> The fundamental question we are trying to answer is this: If the
> first vehicle in the convoy stops suddenly, do the reaction times of
> each subsequent driver accumulate so that, at some point, a rear-end
> collision is inevitable? The accident in which three soldiers died
> involved the 14th, 15th and 16th vehicles in a convoy of 33.
>
> TIA,
>
> Andy Mai