Does a vehicle travelling at 100 km/h cover approximately 28 metres per second?

The question is about converting speed into the distance covered in one second. A vehicle travelling at 100 km/h covers about 28 m per second. The answer is: yes.

The Road Traffic Act requires you to drive at a speed that ensures control of the vehicle and to keep the distance needed to avoid a collision, and to judge this, it is useful to be able to convert speed into metres. An hour has 3600 seconds, so 100 km/h is 100 000 m divided by 3600 s, that is 27.8 m/s - rounded, 28 m. A quick way to do it in your head: you divide the speed in km/h by 3.6, or even more simply - you multiply it by 3 and divide by 10, which gives 30 m at 100 km/h, a slightly higher result, but a safe one. This number explains many rules: one second of reaction at 100 km/h means 28 m travelled without braking, and the two-second rule for following distance means here over 55 m to the vehicle in front. At 50 km/h it is about 14 m per second, at 140 km/h almost 39 m.

Legal basis: Art. 19 para. 1 and para. 2 point 3 of the Road Traffic Act (Prawo o ruchu drogowym)