Estimating Speeds & Accelerations (OCR Gateway GCSE Physics: Combined Science)

• The table below gives some typical speeds (in m/s) for various everyday scenarios

Typical Speeds Table

• Note that typical speeds of a person walking, running or cycling depends on a variety of factors, such as:
  • Age
  • Terrain
  • Fitness
  • Distance

• Similarly, typical speeds of transportation systems like cars or planes will depend on their:
  • Shape
  • Design
  • Cost
  • Purpose

Part (a)

• • The student’s claim is incorrect because 6 m/s is too fast
  • The typical speed that people walk at is about 1.5 m/s

Part (b)

• • Some factors that can affect the typical speeds of a person walking are:
    • The terrain might be wet, rocky or steep
    • The age of the person
    • The fitness of the person
    • The length of the walk or journey

• The acceleration of an object is a measure of how quickly its velocity changes
• A typical family car, for example, takes around 10 seconds to go from 0 m/s to 27 m/s (roughly 60 mph)
  • This is an acceleration of about 2.7 m/s²
  • The table below gives some other typical accelerations:

Typical Accelerations Table