Question

A car travelling at 60 km/h overtakes another car travelling at 42 km/h. Assuming each car to be 5.0 m long, find the time taken during the overtake and the total road distance used for the overtake.

Answer 1

Relative velocity of the faster car : v = 60 - 42 = 18 kmph = 5 m/s
Total distance the faster car has to travel in respect to other car in order to overtake it completely will be 10 m.
Hence: time taken is $t=\frac{10}{5}=2s$
Road distance used will be the absolute distance travelled by the faster car while overtaking
i.e. $2\times \frac{50}{3}=\frac{100}{3}m$