A high-speed chase captured on a surveillance camera showed the suspect running a red light at an intersection. The suspect vehicle collided with a vehicle that had just turned into the path of his car. The tape shows that it took the car 0.546 s to cross the intersection, which was measured to be 41.2 ft. The posted speed limit was 25 mph. Determine whether the suspect was speeding at the moment he collided with the second vehicle

Question

A high-speed chase captured on a surveillance camera showed the suspect running a red light at an intersection. The suspect vehicle collided with a vehicle that had just turned into the path of his car. The tape shows that it took the car 0.546 s to cross the intersection, which was measured to be 41.2 ft. The posted speed limit was 25 mph. Determine whether the suspect was speeding at the moment he collided with the second vehicle

Answer 1

To determine whether the suspect was speeding at the moment of collision, we need to calculate the speed of the suspect's vehicle. We can use the time it took to cross the intersection and the distance traveled to calculate the speed.

First, let's convert the given speed limit from mph to ft/s for consistency. Since 1 mile is equal to 5280 feet and 1 hour is equal to 3600 seconds, we can convert as follows:

25 mph = (25 * 5280) ft / 3600 s ≈ 36.66 ft/s

Now, let's calculate the speed of the suspect's vehicle using the given time and distance. Speed is defined as distance divided by time:

Speed = Distance / Time

Speed = 41.2 ft / 0.546 s ≈ 75.64 ft/s

Comparing the calculated speed of the suspect's vehicle (75.64 ft/s) with the speed limit (36.66 ft/s), we can see that the suspect was indeed speeding at the moment of collision.