Car accidents and number of stopped cars due to road blockage on a one-lane highway

Abstract

Within the framework of a simple model of car traffic on a one-lane highway, we study the probability for car accidents to occur when drivers do not respect the safety distance between cars, and, as a result of the blockage during the time $T$ necessary to clear the road, we determine the number of stopped cars as a function of car density. We give a simple theory in good agreement with our numerical simulations.