Methods of Overtaking Maneuvers
Early studies or researches on overtaking manoeuvre were developed by the American, Swedish and Australian. The first study was done by Lauer and Forbes in 1930. In their research, they made a 'miniature highway' as a driving task simulator. This simulator was made from canvas belt about 20 feet long, which provide visual condition of the roadway for the driver of the same direction and the oncoming miniature cars. The concept of this miniature was to let the driver to steer, accelerate and decelerate to overtake and dodge two direction traffic of miniature cars.
This simulator helped to estimate the speed of the overtaken cars and also the overtaking time, (Forbes, 1932). After simulation test results succeeded, an actual experiment was carried out on a 1 mile stretch of road test. This experiment required an observer car which moved at a same speed throughout the test and also a target car which will approach the observer's car. The result from the experiment gave a very large error on speed estimation compare to the result shown by the simulator.
Matson and Forbes (1938), were the pioneers who used moving observation vehicle technique to study the driver overtaking behavior. The observation vehicle is driven along the traffic flow with the speed which had been determined before and it will record the behavior of the motorists which overtake the observer vehicle. Other than observation vehicle, they also used visual recording method to record the behavior of the motorists while execute overtaking manoeuvre. This method helped to analyses the data in the laboratory.
They analysed about 709 overtaking manoeuvres. A new method was applied to conduct a research of overtaking behavior. Geertje Hegeman (2005), introduced a method using instrumented vehicle and observation along the road. The subject's vehicle is installed with a specific instrument which will help drivers during overtaking task. The tests were conducted on novice young drivers and results showed that not half of the subjects used the instrument while overtake. This shows that driver behavior such as lack of respect and responsibility towards other drivers on road, led to the increasing number of overtaking accident. Other researcher who used instrumental vehicle as a method of conducting the study was Lerner et al (2000), who found that result, both from laboratory and instrumental vehicle, showed that about one third of drivers overestimated the time allowed to make a passing and underestimate the time required to pass a vehicle especially a truck.
Other methods of collecting overtaking behaviors data including accident analysis and test track observation, (G.Hegeman, Serge Hoogendoorn, Karel Brookhuis, 2005). The practical method is to adopt a test using still video camera which is situated on a higher ground level which help to cover the area of overtaking section. Some of the researchers who used this method in their studies are Talib Abdulameer Mahdi (1991), Sitti Asmah Hassan (2005), Hillel Bar Gera and David Shinar (2005). Talib Abdulameer Mahdi (1991) stated that overtaking manoeuvre commence when the overtaking vehicle crossed the centreline to the opposite direction and overtake the leading vehicle in the process to be completed when the overtaking vehicle return back to its original lane. Sitti Asmah Hassan (2005), stated that from the experiment, she found that the speed of overtaking vehicle depends on the speed of overtaken vehicle, decision times, overtaking distance and acceleration. Hillel Bar Gera and David Shinar (2005) who also used video camera method concluded that the urge to overtake other vehicle was because of the speed variability of the driver. The more variable the driver speed, the more likely he or she to overtake the vehicle ahead even though its speed was greater than the average speed.