Work out the stopping distance for a car travelling at 80mph?

G T

What car? Exotics such as a Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche will stop faster than most cars. A 2400 pound sports car will stop way faster than a 5000 pound full size sedan. Variations in breaking can be as much as a 100 feet.... this can be life threatening in an emergency situation.

Car and Driver Magazine does tests on a lot of cars and publishes data such as stopping distances, acceleration, cornering G force, etc. So if you know what car you're talking about, the data is probably available on the C&D internet site: http://www.caranddriver.com/

read the highway code

Scouse

80 feet before you react and 400 ft to stop about 500 feet and more on wet or greasy road especially if you lock your wheels and don't lift ofthe pedal a fffew times

eric

Your car will travel about 117.3 feet per second at 80 mph, so considering the 2-second rule, you can come to a safe stop within 234.6 feet. You're also have to take into count reaction time (which varies by person), but the other answer says it's 3/4 second. So, you should allow at least 322.6 feet or about 325 feet for stopping distance. And this is taking into account a safe stop with dry conditions. If you had to slam on your brakes, I'll think you could stop quicker, but your brakes may lock up which is not good, so slamming on your brakes is not recommended if possible to stop safely. Stopping also depends on how good you brakes are, the type of car, and weight of car.

paul h

well the world revolves so many thousand mph, wind conditions.. was i going up down or just on a flat. good tyres bad tyres..
fully laden just the driver,, is that black ice mmmm,,
thinking.....

13 days and 4.2 nano second later,,,,,,,

i reckon i might just stop within a 3 mile radius of where i started.

that will leave me without conclusive evidence born of fact,

so i will guess,

oh bugger metres or feet??? ahh how do work that out

bah i give up

67.97 yards ????

L205

The stopping distances in the highway code are worked out as:

Thinking distance in feet = speed in mph

Braking distance in feet = speed in mph squared and then divided by 20.

So, thinking distance = 80 feet.

Braking distance = (80 x 80) / 20 = 320 feet

So the total braking distance is 400 feet.

In reality, there are other factors to consider than speed alone. But it is a scary thought that, by these calculations, going 10 mph over the speed limit could take you an extra 85 feet to stop!

drtried

you would need to know:

weight of the car
angle of the road
friction applied to wheels (braking force)
friction of tires on the road, at an infinite number of speed points

do you see where this is going?

not possible given the data, and even then it would take a very educated mathematician/physicist to figure this out. i sure as hell couldn't do it... well, maybe with a few hours of research and even then, I think I'm being a bit unrealistic.

Ian L

starting at 20mph.....

20 x2 = 40
30 x2.5 = 75
40 x 3 = 120
50 x3.5 = 175
60 x 4 = 240
70 x 4.5 = 315

80 x5 = 400
90 x5.5 = 495

David W

First off, you need to know your speed in feet per second, and at 80 MPH, that's about 120 fps. Then, remember that it takes around 3/4 second for a normal person to react to a situation and hit the brake, so there's about 90 feet before you can even start braking.

From there, it depends on the weight of your vehicle, the condition of the brakes and tires, the condition of the road (wet, dry, dusty, icy), even the temperature. You might find some data by Googling "auto stopping distance."

Where were you planning on driving 80 MPH?

UCANTCME

Try this site............

http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/garage/stopmph.htm

bassalong

it would depend on road conditions.

Where the Isla meets the Tay.

If it's off the end of a cliff then the car will stop immediately at the bottom.

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