Question

In a busy hospital carpark whilst eagerly searching for a vacant car space a driver becomes distracted from driving his sedan car and collides head on with an off duty ambulance. The sedan car's mass is 1000 kg and just prior to accident it had9a velocity of 10 m/s. The ambulance mass is 10000 kg and it had a velocity of 4 m/s.

1. What is the final velocity of the vehicles?

2. In respect to the two vehicles position, what is their final direction? Why?

Answer 1

1. Let us assume that the momentum of car before collision is Mc1 and after is Mc2 while that for ambulance is Ma1 and Ma2.

;

Now the velocities after the collision can be found as follows:

2. The car will move in the direction opposite to that of it's initial modtion while the ambulance will continue to move in the same direction as previously.