Two cars leave town at the same time going in the same direction One travels 55 mph and the other travels 48 mph In how many hours will they be 49 miles apart?

x will be the time in hours, so your equation is 55x+48x=49

You can add the like terms together to get 103x=49

You can divide by 103 to get x=49/103, or about 0.4757281 hours, or 28 minutes and 32.62116 seconds.