Two cars leave at the same time from points a and b, the distance between them is 280 km. if the cars meet each other, they’ll meet in 2 hours. but if they go in the same direction, then the car going from point a will catch up with the car going from point b in 14 hours. what is the speed of both of the cars?

Set up the following equations:





x represents car A's speed, and y represents car B's speed.

We'll use elimination to solve this system of equations. Multiply the first equation by 7:





Combine both equations:



Divide both sides by 28 to get x by itself:



The speed of car A is 80 mph.

Since we now know the value of one of the variables, we can plug it into the first equation:





Subtract 160 from both sides.



Divide both sides by 2 to get y by itself:



The speed of car B is 60 mph.