Braking a Car

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A car travels with velocity . The driver see a person walking on the street. (You can drag the pedestrian to the left or right.) It takes the driver 0.45 seconds to react, during which the car continues at its original velocity. Then the driver brakes the car, with an acceleration of , until the car stops. What is the total distance that the car needs in order to stop before hitting the pedestrian?

Contributed by: Enrique Zeleny (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


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Details

The distance traveled by the car while the driver reacts is

.

The distance needed for braking is

.

The time can be computed with

.

Then total distance is equal to

.



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