A car is sitting at a stoplight. When the light changes, the car accelerates at a rate of 11.8 m/s2 until it reaches the speed limit of 30 mph. The car maintains this speed for 4.9 s, at which time the driver sees the next stoplight turn red and immediately begins to decelerate steadily, coming to rest 7.0 s later. What is the distance between these successive stoplights

initial speed when it is dropped is 150 ft/s

now at the same moment the acceleration due to gravity is perpendicular to its velocity

so as we know that

now we have centripetal acceleration a = 32 ft/s^2 as its perpendicular to velocity

while tangential acceleration at the same moment will be zero

so

now radius of curvature is given as

so the radius of curvature just after it is dropped is 703.125 ft