- #1
Lukasha
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Homework Statement
I'm not in school and although I took plenty of physics back in high school, I've forgotten most of what I need for this. I'm not asking for anyone to do the work for me, but it's been so long I don't even know which formula I should use to solve the problem. I can do the math, I just need help with setting up the formula.
The issue is that I was in a minor accident the other day and the other driver was completely at fault, but they are lying to the insurance companies about what happened. I know they are at fault and I know I can prove it with all of the information I have. Basically I need to disprove their claim which will basically show mine to be the only viable one.
The situation they claim is that at point A their car was directly in front of mine in the same lane and we were traveling the same speed. They are claiming that I changed lanes and accelerated to nearly catch up with them at which point they changed lanes into me. The way I know I can prove that it's impossible is there was a very short distance between point A and point B which was a stop light that was currently red. We were traveling around 40-50 MPH and at that speed with no stopping, it would only take around 14.5-18 seconds to travel from A to B. I need to prove that it would be impossible for me to accelerate fast enough to not only catch up to them at the point of impact and to be able to decelerate in time to stop at the light.
The information I have is the distance from A to B, the lengths of both cars and where on the cars the damage was so I know their relative position at impact, and if needed I can probably dig up the acceleration/deceleration characteristics of my car.
Homework Equations
Honestly I know this probably has to do with some type of acceleration formula but looking at the introductory physics formula page, I don't know which one to use.
The Attempt at a Solution
I have attempted to use my google-fu to try and figure out how to figure this out, but because of how common the words are, I haven't had much luck. I'm hoping someone will take pity on me and just set up what formulas I'd need and then I can plug in the numbers and do that math. I appreciate any and all help and I hope I haven't committed any cardinal physics sins by asking for help with this.
Jeff