“Well Calvin, they have two cars drive towards the other car and at the right point, the car in back passes the one on front. If he hits the oncoming car, they try again from a little further back…”
IME no-passing zones are determined by finding the stretch of road most logical for passing, and then putting NO PASSING signs up and painting double yellow lines.
In the UK you are not allowed to cross double white lines to overtake anything but a slow moving vehicle like a bicycle or a horse.
In ye olden days, the placing of white lines was determined by two guys with a length of rope. (I can’t determine what length). They would walk along the centre of the road and if the guy at the back couldn’t see the one in front, paint the lines. I imagine it’s all done by GPS these days.
There are variations - If there are double lines, but the one on your side is dashes, you are allowed to cross, while people coming the other way are not. You may also see the international sign with a red circle and two silhouettes, one black, one red. Like this.
You should also note that we say “No Overtaking” which is more accurate than “No Passing”, since “passing” might be in the opposite direction.
Here is a detailed description of how the placement is determined NPTEL IITm
Actually it hasn’t. A complete factual answer to my entire OP would go something like this:
*Assuming a two-lane 55 mph stretch of road, you aren’t allowed to pass a car unless it is going less than 55 mph, therefor the distance required assumes that the car is going at most 54 mph.
In order to pass you must start from a safe distance behind which is determined to be one car length for every 10 mph that you are travelling. You must also exceed that distance before you can pull back into your lane in front of the car you are passing.
You may exceed the speed limit by up to 10 mph for the amount of time required to pass.
For safety’s sake we have assumed that oncoming traffice may be exceeding the speed limit by up to 10 mph.*
To be clear… I’m not saying that any of the above is factual. Just saying that all of those variables need to be considered in establishing the distance needed to pass.
That’s how they seem to do it in Colorado. That, and many ‘passing’ zones have hardly any sight distance at all.
And I’m going to rant about this here… Dammit, when they open up an additional lane as a passing lane, THAT’S the lane that should eventually end. NOT the pre-existing (now) right lane.
I generally go the speed limit. Perhaps a little over. I just ain’t in no hurry. It never fails that a car/cars will start to pass and then MY lane ends forcing me to squeeze into the cars that are passing. Dammit, they chose to pass, they should be the ones to make sure they can do it in the distance allowed.