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The Physics of Driving. By: Group A. Factors Affecting Reaction Time.
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The Physics of Driving By: Group A
Factors Affecting Reaction Time • The time taken to respond to a situation is called reaction time. You have a slower reaction time when you are distracted. In both situations, your reaction was probably quicker than your reaction time would be while driving, because you knew that you were expected to respond. Alcohol and drugs can significantly slow a person’s reaction time.
Every state in the United States has different laws and measures to prevent the influence of drugs or alcohol while driving. • This is because these factors can slow down your reaction time • Other factors can affect your reaction time: age, gender, practice, fatigue, exercise, attentiveness, and even personality are some of the factors that can increase reaction time
Distractions Affect Your Reaction Time • Distractions are something or some event that draws your attention from a pressing matter • For instance, if a billboard catches your attention, it is a distraction, therefore, not allowing you to pay proper attention to the roads. • As an effect, this could lead to accident/ collision due to the distraction. Distractions slow your reaction time, and dull your senses.
In extension: • Most teenagers have a higher cost of insurance than older drivers, most of the habits that ail teenage drivers (stereotypically) are : • Texting, chatting, peer pressure of other passengers in the car, drugs, alcohol, and being more attentive to the group than the road.
The Speed Limit • Like with all measurements, there is no way to know that one is driving at exactly the speed limit, because of random errors ( errors that can’t be fixed by calculation) Ex: a slippery road, or driving over a rock) • That is why a driver must estimate, or make a educated guess as to how fast he should be driving. • The driver should be try to be as accurate, or as close to the speed limit, as possible. For example, if the speed limit is 60 miles per hour, and I was driving 61.2 miles an hour I would most likely not get pulled over by the police , because this is a accurate estimation of the speed limit. But, if I was driving 100.9 miles per hour in the sahme place, I would either get into an accident or get a ticket, because this speed is not an accurate estimation of the speed limit.
Length of Space Between You and Another Car • When driving, it is important know how far away you are from another car on the road. You will not be able to tell the exact distance, but you estimate the distance in units of measurement • In the U.S we use the English System in which length is measured in yards , feet , and inches. • Every where else in the world, they used the metric system, in which length is measured based on the meter. If a driver sees a truck in front of them that has a sign “Do Not Come 100 ft Within this Vehicle, a driver must know that there must be a lot of space between there car and the truck, or else a collision may occur.
Finding a safe following distance. How far will your car travel before you are able to stop?
How to determine a safe following distance. Using and understanding this information can help us to determine what a safe following distance will be while driving at different speeds. Using our previous knowledge on reaction time we know that there will be a brief period of time needed to react to a situation while driving. When driving at faster speeds you will travel further in that amount of time, this is called reaction distance. Therefore you have to keep a further following distance from the car in front of you as you drive at faster speeds.
The Speed Limit In addition to all of this we also learn that it is safer to drive at a slower speeds. So that you have more time to react before an accident occurs. If we don’t drive the speed limit then a police officer could detect our speed using a radar gun that detects the change in pitch of our car that occurs from the Doppler effect.
