Question

A police officer draws a sketch of the scene of an accident, as shown.

An illustration of a car rounding a bend in the road looking down on the car. There is a vector towards the center of the turn labeled W, a vector forward labeled Y, a vector out away from the center of the circle unlabeled and a vector between vectors W and Y labeled X.
The car was rounding the curve when it hit an oil slick and went off the road. Which arrow shows the direction that the car moved in after hitting the oil slick?

W
X
Y
Z

Answer 1

Answer: Y.

Reason: losing traction removes the centripetal force, so the car continues in a straight line at its instantaneous velocity — tangent to the curve. Arrow Y is the tangent (forward) direction.