Human reaction times are worsened by alcohol. How much farther would a drunk driver's car travel before he hits the brakes than a sober driver's car? Assume both cars are initially traveling at 47.0 mi/h, the sober driver takes .33 s and the drunk driver takes 1.0 s to hit the brakes in a crisis.

Question

show steps please!!!

Answer 1

First, we need to convert the speed from miles per hour (mi/h) to feet per second (ft/s). We can do this by knowing that there are 5280 feet in a mile and 3600 seconds in an hour:

47.0 mi/h * (5280 ft/mi) / (3600 s/h) = 68.8 ft/s

Now, we need to find the distance each car travels during the reaction time.

For the sober driver with a reaction time of 0.33 s:

Distance_sober = Speed × Time
Distance_sober = 68.8 ft/s × 0.33 s
Distance_sober ≈ 22.7 feet

For the drunk driver with a reaction time of 1.0 s:

Distance_drunk = Speed × Time
Distance_drunk = 68.8 ft/s × 1.0 s
Distance_drunk = 68.8 feet

Now we can find the difference between these distances:

Difference = Distance_drunk - Distance_sober
Difference = 68.8 ft - 22.7 ft
Difference ≈ 46.1 feet

So a drunk driver's car would travel about 46.1 feet farther before he hits the brakes than a sober driver's car.