Are Cars Speeding? - Investigation

 In Science, we have been learning about forces and motions such as being able to calculate speed by doing distance/time. We used this to investigate the speed of cars on Carmen Rd. There is a formula triangle you can use to find out the missing part. D is at the top, with V and T on the bottom, shaped like a triangle. To find out the D, multiply V and T together, and if you wanted to find out either V or T, divide D by either V or T(whichever is given).

V - Speed

T - Time 

D - Distance

Speed is measured in ms-1 or km hr-1, distance is measured in metres and kilometres, and time is measured in seconds, minutes, or possibly even hours.

We measured how fast it took 10 different cars to travel 50m using a stopwatch. After that, we did the following equation to find out how many metres per second it was travelling: Distance (50m) divided by the time, and that equalled the ms-1. To then find the km hr-1, we multiplied the ms-1 by 3.6. We then found an average for how long the 10 cars took to travel 50m, how many ms-1it travelled, and the average km hr-1. 

These are the results-

Average car speed (for 50m):4.4 seconds

Average ms-1: 13.7 metres

Average km hr-1: 49.4 kilometres

In conclusion, the set speed limit for the road is 50km/h, so the average car sticks to that limit. Other aspects may have affected the speed such as slowing down at the intersection or speeding up after passing through the intersection. There were, however, 1 in 10 cars that were slightly speeding on that road, reaching a speed of 58.25km hr-1.