title: Using a method of parent class with variable of child class without overriding
body: <p>I am currently designing two classes in Java, and am having some trouble with understanding my current problem of inheritance, so I've created a simple example code in hopes that someone can help me understand what is going on.</p>
  
  <p>So in this example, a parent class (for general purpose, we could call it class Car) and a child class (class RedCar). The parent class, which is abstract, contains an attribute distance, and contains a method of computeVelocity, which takes input argument time (double), and returns a double value of distance divided by time (thus giving velocity).</p>
  
  <p>The child class has a constructor, RedCar(double inputDistance). It should also have access to the computeVelocity method, without overriding it.</p>
  
  <p>Here's where the problem is. Logically, I understand that computeVelocity should not take the inputDistance variable from RedCar because its calling a method of another class. What I want to know, however, is how to bring that method into the RedCar class so that it could be used within said class with the arguments handed to the constructor.</p>
  
  <p>Here is an example of the code</p>
  
  <pre><code>//Car Class
  public abstract class Car{
    //abstract variable
    private double distance;
    //compute velocity method
    public double computeVelocity(double time){
       return distance/time;
    }
   }
  
  
  
  
   //RedCar Class
   public class RedCar extends Car{
     public double distance;
  
     public RedCar (double inputDistance){
        this.distance = inputDistance;
     }
    //This is currently my method but I believe this already constitutes as overridding
    public double computeVelocity(double hours){
        Car.super.computeVelocity(hours);
    }
   }
  </code></pre>