The Slowest Family on the Block

Once upon a time, two families lived on the same block--the Smiths and the Jones'. The Smiths were always trying to keep up with the Jones', but the Smiths had no automobile and the family had to walk everywhere. There were six Smiths--and each day they would leave the house, walking, to fulfill their daily tasks, and every morning the Jones' shiny new automobile would roar past, leaving them in a cloud of dust. The Smiths knew that walking was healthy and indeed they were healthy for each walked an average of two miles a day which amounted to about 4,380 miles per year. And because they had gotten quite good at walking and sometimes jogged, the average time it took each Smith to travel a 2-mile daily course was 20 minutes. One day Mr. Smith divided the family's total mileage by the total time spent walking or jogging and found that the average speed of the family was 6 miles per hour.

Mr. Jones had been doing some figuring of his own. He found that it cost him about $2,530 a year for his nice, shiny automobile (everything included). To pay for this he had to work for two full months. Mr. Jones drove his car about 10,000 miles a year, and noticed that a third of the time was spent driving alone, and about two-thirds driving his family around to various places, since none of the Jones' ever walked anywhere. Then Mr. Jones did the same thing Mr. Smith did and, adding up all the time he and his family spent working for or riding in the automobile, he divided the total into the 10,000 miles. By this method, Mr. Jones found the average speed of his family was 5 miles per hour. You see, the Jones' were almost keeping up with the Smiths. Do you believe it?