Speeding Lab - Peter, Ryan, Erika, Mike

[Mikephysics]

1. For this project we measured the speed of cars on cooper road. We wanted to see whether cars were following the speed limit.
2.  

• We measured out 10 meters
• 2 people used stopwatches measuring the time it took for the front of the car to go 10 meters. Also when people were timing the car, another was recording the details of the license plate and color.
• Took the average of the 2 measurements
• Converted our data into meters per second

This is the data we found

1.  

Car

Distance (m)

Time (s)

Speed (m/s)

B7E 2186

10

0.9

11.11111

 

FY75391

10

1.02

9.803922

 

BRC2005

10

1.14

8.77193

 

C62 2538

10

1.33

7.518797

 

M28 993

10

1.11

9.009009

 

L88729

10

1.03

9.708738

 

AKT3042

10

0.95

10.52632

 

AKH2389

10

1.1

9.090909

 

BLL4728

10

1.36

7.352941

 

ESM6120

10

1.35

7.407407

 

 

1. 11.1+9.8+8.7+7.5+9.0+9.7+10.5+9.1+7.4+7.4=90.2/10=9.02 m/s
2. 
3. Our results show that people drove from 7.3 m/s – 10.5 m/s and the average was 9.02. If we were to do this again we should not be as visible so that our presence doesn’t alter the speed which people drive at and there should be less people conducting tests so the test takers can see more clearly. These results are quite a bit different from our instructor who didn’t show his presence to the cars and got higher speeds because of it.
   1.  According to our data, there is not a speeding problem on Cooper Road. The data               shows that the average speed cars go is well under the speed limit. This could also be due to many of the cars having to accelerate coming from the traffic light they were at. Based on the data, cars may be going too slow on Cooper Road; at least when there’s civilians measuring their speed.