Officer Blake drives his squad car 1 mile per minute wile patrolling local highways during his shift. If he has driven 480 miles by the end of his shift, how many total hours did he drive his car at the above rate?

Answer

To solve the problem, we will follow these steps:

1. **Determine the driving rate**: Officer Blake drives at a rate of 1 mile per minute.

2. **Calculate the total time in minutes**: Since he has driven 480 miles, we can calculate the total time he spent driving in minutes.
\[ \text{Total time in minutes} = \text{Total distance} \div \text{Rate} = 480 \text{ miles} \div 1 \text{ mile/minute} = 480 \text{ minutes} \]

3. **Convert minutes to hours**: To convert the total time from minutes to hours, we divide by the number of minutes in an hour (60 minutes).
\[ \text{Total time in hours} = \frac{480 \text{ minutes}}{60 \text{ minutes/hour}} = 8 \text{ hours} \]

Thus, Officer Blake drove his car for a total of **8 hours**.