A car moving at 12m/s crashes into a tree and stops in 26ms. Calculate the force the seat belt exerts

on a passenger in the car to bring him to a halt. The mass of the passenger is 60kg. Would the

answer to this question be different if the car with the 60kg passenger had collided with a car that

has a mass equal to and is traveling in the opposite direction and at the same speed? Explain your

nswer.

1 answer

27692.3

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The force exerted by a seat belt on a passenger during a car crash depends on the mass of the passenger and the deceleration experienced. In this scenario, the car is traveling at 12m/s and comes to a stop in 26ms. By using Newton's second law (F = m*a), we can calculate the force exerted by the seat belt on the 60kg passenger. Since the car stops, the deceleration experienced is equal to the initial velocity divided by the time taken to stop (12m/s / 26ms = 0.4615m/s²). Therefore, the force exerted by the seat belt is equal to the mass of the passenger multiplied by the deceleration (60kg * 0.4615m/s² = 27.7N). If the car had collided with another car of the same mass and traveling in the opposite direction at the same speed, the force exerted by the seat belt on the passenger would still be the same. This is because the force experienced by an object in a collision is independent of the mass and velocity of the other object involved. The force exerted by the seat belt on the passenger is solely determined by the deceleration experienced during the collision, which remains the same in both scenarios.