Cars

[Marshall]

I was wondering today why this is:

You're going down the road in a car. You look out the window, look at the trees, which are moving fairly fast.. but you look at the grass and it's crazy..

Question is, why are things further away seem to move slower than things close up?

 

[John Connellan]

Simply because of a scale difference. This is the same as asking why are things further away smaller! One meter in distance appears much larger than 1 meter 100m away so the relative speeds of objects farther away will also be less since v = d x t.

 

[James R]

It's all about the change in the angular position of the object, according to your eye. Think of a line joining your eye to an object you're watching. If the object is nearer to you, the angle swept out by that line in a given time will be greater than for an object further away.

 

[John Connellan]

If the object is nearer to you, the angle swept out by that line in a given time will be greater than for an object further away.

If the objects are the same then why is this that case? Because the object farther away appears smaller like I said!
This however is a great explanation of why things appear smaller. Apparently we humans work with angles right?