Braking Distance of a Skidding Car

Introduction
You're driving a car on an incline, but the brakes lock up. How far will your car skid?

This application uses Newton's 2nd law and laws of motion to derive an equation that gives the
distance your car will skid (also known as the braking distance). This equation shows that the braking
distance is proportional to the square of the velocity at the start of the skid.

>

Theory
Newton's second law in the x direction (where N is the normal force, m is the mass of the car, g is the
velocity, and is the angle of the road
>

Newton's second law in the y direction (where f is the coefficient of friction for the tires and the road
surface).
>

Equation of motion for the car (where s is the distance, is the initial distance, is the initial
velocity, and a is the acceleration
>
When the car stops, the velocity is zero

>
(1.1)

Rearrange eq_1, eq_2, eq_3 and eq_4 to give the skidding distance
>

(1.2)

>

(1.3)

Assuming that the initial distance is 0, then the skidding distance varies with the square of the initial
velocity .

Skidding Distance vs Initial Velocity

Let's plot the braking distance for a range of initial velocities on a sloped road.
>