ABSTRACT
The purpose was to study the effect of vehicle length on meeting margins during overtaking maneuvers. A field study video-recorded overtaking maneuvers of a 30 m and a 24 m truck on a two-lane road. The difference in average meeting margins between the trucks was not statistically significant. An ocular assessment of the video material revealed a few critical situations during the overtaking maneuvers of the 30 m truck; all with meeting margins less than 3 s. Although these results should be interpreted with great caution as the number of analyzed overtaking maneuvers was limited, two previous studies describe similar findings. The conflict technique is discussed as a tool in the assessment of critical meeting margins. It is concluded that more field studies and data are needed to estimate the risks when overtaking Longer Combination Vehicles.
