How do you calculate speed, distance and time?

Use speed = distance ÷ time, distance = speed × time, and time = distance ÷ speed, remembered with the D-S-T triangle. The commonest error is time: convert minutes to hours by dividing by 60, so 40 minutes is two-thirds of an hour, not 0.4. Average speed is total distance ÷ total time.

How do you calculate fuel consumption?

Miles per gallon is distance ÷ gallons used, where higher is more economical. Litres per 100 km is litres ÷ km × 100, where lower is more economical. The fuel cost of a journey is the fuel used (distance ÷ consumption) multiplied by the price per unit.

How do you calculate overall stopping distance?

Overall stopping distance = thinking distance + braking distance, so add the two parts, or subtract to find one. Typical Highway Code dry-road figures are about 23 m at 30 mph, 73 m at 60 mph and 96 m at 70 mph, with braking distance growing with the square of the speed.

What are the key science-of-motoring equations?

Force = mass × acceleration (F = ma), momentum = mass × velocity (p = mv, in kg m/s), and kinetic energy = half mass times velocity squared (½mv², in joules). Kinetic energy depends on the square of the speed, so doubling speed gives four times the energy.

How do you convert between mph and km/h?

Use the approximation 5 miles is about 8 kilometres, so multiply mph by 1.6 to get km/h, and divide km/h by 1.6 to get mph.

Northern IrelandMotor Vehicle & Road User Studies

Motoring mathematics - CCEA GCSE MVRUS study guide

A CCEA GCSE Motor Vehicle and Road User Studies study guide to motoring mathematics: speed, distance and time, fuel consumption and running costs, stopping distances, and the science of motoring - force, momentum and kinetic energy.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.88 min readCCEAUpdated 2026-06-15

Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed

Jump to a section

What this module covers
How the topics fit together
How it is assessed
How to revise this module

What this module covers

This module is the motoring mathematics content area of CCEA GCSE Motor Vehicle and Road User Studies (MVRUS), examined in Unit 1: Motor Vehicle and Road Use Theory. It is where the course becomes numerical: working out speed, distance and time, fuel consumption and running costs, stopping distances, and the science of motoring - the forces, momentum and energy behind how vehicles move and stop.

How the topics fit together

Speed, distance and time calculations - the speed-distance-time relationship, average speed, and unit conversions.
Fuel consumption and running costs - mpg and litres per 100 km, the fuel cost of a journey, and standing and running costs.
Stopping distance and the science of motoring - adding thinking and braking distances, the Highway Code figures, and F = ma, p = mv and kinetic energy.

How it is assessed

Unit 1 is a written paper. Expect to:

Calculate speed, distance or time and an average speed (the specimen asks for average fuel consumption and similar).
Work out fuel consumption and the cost of fuel for a journey.
Add or subtract parts of the stopping distance, and use F = ma, p = mv and kinetic energy.

How to revise this module

Learn the D-S-T triangle and always convert minutes to hours.
Practise both mpg and litres per 100 km and which way "good" goes.
Memorise the three science-of-motoring equations and their units.
Show your working and units in every calculation - method marks count.

Sources & how we know this

CCEA GCSE Motor Vehicle and Road User Studies specification — CCEA (2017)