If you are traveling at 60 miles per hour and wish to pass a vehicle going 55 miles per hour, how many seconds do you need to safely complete the pass?

To determine how many seconds are needed to safely pass a vehicle when you're traveling at 60 miles per hour and the vehicle you are passing is going 55 miles per hour, we need to consider the difference in speed and the distance required to safely complete the pass.

The relative speed between your vehicle and the one you are passing is 5 miles per hour (60 mph - 55 mph). To convert this speed into feet per second, we can use the conversion factor where 1 mile per hour is approximately 1.47 feet per second. Thus, 5 mph translates to about 7.35 feet per second (5 mph × 1.47).

For a safe passing distance, a general guideline is that you need about 1,600 feet to complete an overtaking maneuver safely. With the relative speed of 5 miles per hour, we need to determine how many seconds it will take to cover this distance.

To find the time in seconds required to cover 1,600 feet at a speed of 7.35 feet per second, we can use the formula time = distance/speed:

Time = 1,600 feet / 7.35 feet per second = approximately 217 seconds.

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