Speeding: On a stretch of Interstate-89, car speed is a normally distributed variable with a mean of 68.3 mph and a standard deviation of 3.7 mph.

Suppose you are a police officer on this stretch of road and only have time to ticket 1% of the cars that go by you. How fast should someone be traveling before you pull them over? Round your answer to 1 decimal place.
mph

Respuesta :

To find the speed at which you should pull someone over, you'll need to determine the speed threshold that corresponds to the top 1% of speeds. This is typically found using z-scores in a normal distribution.

First, you need to find the z-score corresponding to the top 1% of speeds. This z-score can be found using a standard normal distribution table or a calculator. For the top 1% (which corresponds to the upper tail of the distribution), the z-score is approximately 2.33.

Now, use the formula for transforming a z-score to an actual value in a normal distribution:

X = μ + Z × σ

Where:
- X is the actual value (speed in this case)
- μ is the mean speed (68.3 mph)
- Z is the z-score (2.33)
- σ is the standard deviation (3.7 mph)

Plugging in the values:

X = 68.3 + 2.33 × 3.7

X ≈ 68.3 + 8.591 ≈ 76.891

Rounded to 1 decimal place, you should pull someone over if they are traveling at approximately 76.9 mph or faster.