Question

a speeder zooms past a parked police car at a constant speed of 70 mph. then, 3 seconds later, the police starts accelerating from rest at 10 ft/sec^2 until her velocity is 85 mph. how long does it take her to overtake the speeding car if it neither speeds up or slows down?

Answer 1

To calculate the time it takes for the police car to catch up with the speeding car, you can use the equations of motion. It will take approximately 0.67 seconds for the police car to catch up with the speeding car.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the time it takes for the police car to catch up with the speeding car, we can use the equations of motion. Let's first convert the speeds to the same unit. 70 mph is equal to 31.29 m/s, and 85 mph is equal to 37.99 m/s.

The time it takes for the police car to catch up with the speeding car can be calculated using the equation: t = (v - u) / a

where 't' is the time, 'v' is the final velocity, 'u' is the initial velocity, and 'a' is the acceleration.

Plugging in the values, we have:

t = (37.99 - 31.29) / 10

t = 0.67 seconds

Therefore, it takes the police car approximately 0.67 seconds to catch up with the speeding car.