SOLUTION: Shelia leaves on a long trip traveling 30mph. Allison leaves the same location traveling to the the same spot 2 hours later. She drives at a steady rate of 60mph. How long after

Question 81480: Shelia leaves on a long trip traveling 30mph. Allison leaves the same location traveling to the the same spot 2 hours later. She drives at a steady rate of 60mph. How long after Allison leaves will she catch up to Shelia
Answer by doctor_who(15) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
When Allison leaves, 2 hours later, Sheila will be already be 60 miles from the start point (ie 2 hours at 30mph).
At this moment, just as Allison puts her car in gear and floors the throttle, let's start the stopwatch and call it time t=0.
Now let us say that the two of them meet up at time t = T.
__
Now, distance = speed x time, so when they meet up at time = T, Allison will have travelled 60T miles.
__
In that time period, the more sedate Sheila will have travelled 30T miles. Add this to the 60 miles head-start she got (see first paragraph)and the total distance she has traveled since setting off is (30T + 60) miles.
__
Now the clever, bit. At the point they meet up, they must both be exactly the same place which implies they are both the same distance from the start. So we can put our two equations for T equal to each other
60T = 30T + 60
30T = 60
T= 2 hours (ANSWER)
RELATED QUESTIONS
Shelia leaves on a long trip driving at a steady rate of 30mph. Her sister Allison leaves (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com)

Shelia leaves on a long trip driving at a steady rate of 40 miles per hour. Her sister... (answered by fractalier)

Sheila leaves on a long trip driving at a steady rate of 25 miles per hour. Her sister... (answered by algebrahouse.com)

Sheila leaves on a long trip driving at a steady rate of 30 miles per hour. Her sister... (answered by nayha)

Sam leaves on a long trip driving at a steady rate of 45mph. Allen leaves from the same... (answered by ewatrrr)

Train A leaves a station traveling 20mph. Four hours later train B leaves the station... (answered by ewatrrr,Alan3354)

Train A leaves a station traveling @ 20mph. 2 hrs later, Train B leaves the same station (answered by mananth)

candice leaves on a trip driving at a steady rate of 35 miles per hour. Her sister liz... (answered by josgarithmetic)

I am not shore how do do this please help. Girl A leaves on a long trip driving at a... (answered by Alan3354)