Physics Blog 4 "Smooth Sailing"

While returning from Kaneohe on a Sunday afternoon, I saw clear roads! OMG! Clear roads, no joke, but after all, it is Sunday.  During the week, the major highways are packed with people, and it got me thinking, what if there was no friction? If there was no kinetic friction, peoples cars wouldn’t slow down, there would be no stopping, and people would save money on gas.  But, we live in a world where friction is present.  When people are driving down the road along side you, and then suddenly start to fall behind, that is most like kinetic friction acting upon them.  They stopped pressing the accelerator and now no forward force is present.  I say most likely because they could possibly be braking, but for now we will assume they weren't.  When I was driving today, I also felt the force of kinetic friction acting upon the car.  I stopped pressing the accelerator, and the car didn’t seem to have that certain “umph” so it slowed to a stop.  As mentioned above, a person would save money on gas because they would only have to accelerate once to get the car moving and wouldn’t have to keep pressing the gas to keep from slowing down.  Maybe if kinetic friction was not present the roads would be smooth sailing.