Question

A scenario where reaction time is important is when driving on the highway. During the delay between seeing an obstacle and reacting to avoid it (or to slam on the brakes!) you are still moving at full highway speed. Calculate how much distance you cover in meters before you start to put your foot on the brakes if you are travelling 65 miles per hour.

Answer 1

Answer:

66.83 meters

Explanation:

After a quick online search, it seems that scientists calculate the average reaction time of individuals as 2.3 seconds between seeing an obstacle and putting their foot on the brakes. Now that we have this reaction time we need to turn the miles/hour into meters/second.

1 mile = 1609.34 meters  (multiply these meters by 65)

65 miles = 104,607 meters

1 hour = 3600 seconds

Therefore the car was going 104,607 meters every 3600 seconds. Let's divide these to find the meters per second.

$\frac{104,607}{3600} = \frac{29.0575 meters}{1 second}$

Now we simply multiply these meters by 2.3 seconds to find out the distance covered before the driver puts his/her foot on the brakes...

29.0575m * 2.3s = 66.83 meters