You can
put this solution on YOUR website!Avoiding a collision. A car is traveling on a road that is perpendicular to a railroad track. When the car is 30 meters from the crossing, the car's new collision detector warns the friver that there is a train 50 meters from the car and heading toward the same crossing. How far is the train from the crossing?
.
Draw a diagram of the situation and label the information provided.
.
Once you do that, you should see that the "front of the car", the "center of the crossing" and the "front of the train" forms a "right triangle". Now, you can apply Pythagorean's theorem:
.
Let x = distance of train from crossing
then
x^2 + 30^2 = 50^2
x^2 + 900 = 2500
x^2 = 2500 - 900
x^2 = 1600
x = 40 feet
