Friday June 03, 2005
Friday June 03, 2005 High School Math
Math in the service of safety. A lesson for new and experienced drivers alike.
I still clearly remember by freshman high school math teacher, Martin J. Badoian, discussing braking distances with his class. He asked us to estimate how fast we could remove our foot from the accelerator and depress the brake pedal in an emergency and to calculate how far the car would move in that time at different speeds.
Assuming the car stops instantaneously once the brake pedal is depressed (remember, this was math class, not physics) here are the distances in feet for different vehicle speeds and reaction times.
| Speed (MPH) | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 | 70 | 75 | 80 | 85 | 90 | 95 | ||
| Reaction Time (sec) | 0.5 | 22 | 26 | 29 | 33 | 37 | 40 | 44 | 48 | 51 | 55 | 59 | 62 | 66 | 70 |
| 1.0 | 44 | 51 | 59 | 66 | 73 | 81 | 88 | 95 | 103 | 110 | 117 | 125 | 132 | 139 | |
| 1.5 | 66 | 77 | 88 | 99 | 110 | 121 | 132 | 143 | 154 | 165 | 176 | 187 | 198 | 209 | |
| 2.0 | 88 | 103 | 117 | 132 | 147 | 161 | 176 | 191 | 205 | 220 | 235 | 249 | 264 | 279 | |
Elementary, but sobering, mathematics.
(2005-06-03 12:04:37.0) Permalink Comments [0]
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