The driver of a car traveling at 30 m/s needs to quickly reduce the car’s speed to 20m/s to round a curve in the highway. If the car’s deceleration has a magnitude of 6.0 m/s2, how far does it travel while reducing its speed?

Question

The driver of a car traveling at 30 m/s needs to quickly reduce the car’s speed to 20m/s to round a curve in the highway. If the car’s deceleration has a magnitude of 6.0 m/s2,  how far does it travel while reducing its speed?

drwls · Answer

The time required to decelerate by that amount is (30 - 20)/6.0 = 1.667 seconds Multiply that by tha average speed, 25 m/s, for the distance traveled.