Name:________________________ Date:___________________________

Braking Distances

Contributed by T³ IMT Team

Two actions are involved when stopping your car in an emergency: reacting to the problem and braking the car. As your foot moves from the accelerator to the brake, your car continues to travel. This is called the Reaction Distance Traveled. Once your foot is on the brake, you travel until the car comes to a complete stop. This is called the Braking Distance Traveled. The Total Distance traveled would be the sum of these distances.

1. Extract the data from the Internet.

http://www.scottsdalelaw.com/shepston/braking.html

2. Plot and model Reaction versus MPH.

3. Plot and model Braking versus MPH.

4. Plot and model Total versus MPH.

Questions:

1. If it takes a car 280 feet to stop from the time an emergency is sited, how fast is the car traveling?

2. How far will it take a car traveling at 58 mph to stop in an emergency? 72 mph? 112 mph?

3. At what speed is your reaction distance longer than your braking distance?