Why can't you tell when riding in a car at 60 mph?

Question

that you are moving that fast? also how can a fly continue to fly or hover in a car that is moving?

Answer 1

>> why can't you tell when riding in a car at 60 mph?

Because modern roads are so good.  I live in NYC and the roads are bad here.  Whenever I come BACK to nyc, it almost feel like I'm going a 100 (even if I'm on cruise control).

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>> how can a fly continue to fly or hover in a car that is moving?

The fly is flying in AIR that is moving with the fly.

Good Luck....

Answer 2

You feel the acceleration in a car or airplane for that matter when getting up to speed.  Once you are underway, it's both you and the car traveling at the same rate of speed.  It's the same with a fly.  An insect can hover, instead being slammed against the rear window because it too, is traveling at the same speed as the car and you.  It works with any vehicle underway even at the speed of sound.  

I used to wonder why if you threw a wad of paper, why it didn't hit the back window, for the same reason.  (star)

We get night and day because the Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour while the solar system is moving through space at an even higher rate of speed.

Answer 3

just for giggles try this in the car. get a helium filled balloon, on a string. sit in the backseat while someone else drives. hold the balloon by the string, to hover in the back. watch the balloon as they accelerate. it moves forward! because the air in the car is being pushed back from the acceleration, and helium is lighter. when the driver slows, the balloon will move towards the back. the fly too will be move to the front or back, slightly from acceleration, or braking, but only with the air as it compresses that way, and his body weight in motion, inside the motion of the car. i.e. if the car came to a 60mph sudden stop, the fly would crash on the inside of the windshield in the same splat as when they hit the outside.

Answer 4

Because you feel motion relative to what else is around you. If you were on the freeway and everybody is going 60, you won't feel as though you're going very fast.

If you bring it up to 100, it'll feel fast!

A fly can fly in a closed car as the air is not moving around him. Flies do not hover.

Answer 5

The bug is flying in the air contained within the car. From the bug's perspective, it is a closed system. He won't be affected by the car moving in any direction as long as the car isn't approaching the speed of light...........

Answer 6

The fly is moving at the same speed as the car relative to outside, as is everything else in the car, including the air.

We don't feel speed. We only feel acceleration. We are whizzing through space at tremendous speeds, but we feel nothing because there is no acceleration or deceleration of the earth's revolution.

Answer 7

If you look out the window....

no, the reason for the fly thing is that everything inside the car has gradually accelerated at the same time, and the car is enclosed, so the speed and the movement of air outside do not affect the interior. Compare with a fly trying its best in a convertable, and the effect of anything loose in a car when it comes to a sudden halt as in a crash

Answer 8

your body has no "speedometer" mechanism.  it does have a fairly good "accelerometer".