Driving I

This module is part of a series produced at The Universtiy of Nevada at Reno for the National Numeracy Network under a grant from the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation through the National Council on Education and the Disciplines. These brief modules are envisioned as a resource for teachers to use in a classroom setting and also for quantitative literacy workshops for teachers. Each module typically contains one or two examples related to "real world" quantitative literacy issues and includes exercises for students. There is also a section "for the instructor" that contains discussions of some of the topics, solutions to the exercises, and resources for further explorations.

Driving I
Issues of Speed

Jerry Johnson
Universtiy of Nevada, Reno

Young people want nothing more fervently than to be able drive a car. Numeracy issues arise as soon as a novice looks at the driver's manual for the State of Nevada where he or she is confronted with the relationship between stopping distance and speed. We will discuss this as well as how much time speeding really saves.

The mathematics is definition of average speed as distance divided by time
(r = d/t or d = r t) as well as proportions. It would be helpful, but not necessary, to know the definition of acceleration as speed divided by time
(a = r/t or r = at).