How Long Does It Take for a Police Car to Catch a Speeder?

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A speeder traveling at 120 km/h is chased by a police car that accelerates from rest at 1.75 m/s². The chase duration is calculated to be 38.1 seconds. The initial equations used to solve the problem involved distance formulas for both the speeder and the police car. A misunderstanding in the algebraic manipulation caused confusion, but clarification helped correct the approach. Ultimately, the correct answer was achieved after addressing the calculation errors.
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Homework Statement


A speeder moving at 120km/h passes a police car that immediately begins to chase, starting from rest, with an acceleration of 1.75 m/s2. How long is the chase?
The answer is 38.1s

Homework Equations


d=v1+at2
At least that's what I tried, but it didn't work out right..,

The Attempt at a Solution


Speeder:
(In m/s)
d=33.3(t)

Police car:
d=1.75(t)2

Then attempting to equate them together:

33.3t=1.75t2
33.3t/33.3t=1.75t2/33.3t
0=0.053t
0=t

...I did something weird and it's just stopped making sense... Please help (´Д` )
 
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*1/2at2... That's might be my problem, but it's been an issue for almost an hour now (¬_¬)
 
Heres2hoping said:
*1/2at2... That's might be my problem, but it's been an issue for almost an hour now (¬_¬)
That's one problem. Here's another:
Heres2hoping said:
33.3t/33.3t=1.75t2/33.3t
0=0.053t
you seem to have subtracted on the left instead of dividing.
 
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haruspex said:
That's one problem. Here's another:

you seem to have subtracted on the left instead of dividing.
(0o0) thank you so much! I can't believe I did that (-。-; I got the right answer this time (^-^)
 
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