Silly Math

You may know I'm taking a math class at AVC and as I was going through my textbook I found some rather unusual problems to solve. Here are some of them. They are rather dumb and annoying and I have no idea if they are trying to be funny but just reading them makes me wonder what the heck were they doing.

- Do you smoke? How many cigarettes a year? Together, smokers in the United States and Japan consume 4637 cigarettes per person each year. If the average Japanese smoker consumes 437 cigarettes a year more than the average U.S. smoker, what is the annual consumption of cigarettes per person in each country?

(josh found this one here...)
-A group of smugglers cross the border in a car traveling in a straight line at 96 km/hr. An hour later, the border patrol starts after them in a light plane traveling 144 km/hr.
a) How long will it be before the border patrol reaches the smugglers?
b) At what distance from the border will the border patrol overtake the smugglers?

- If you went to school in Japan, then moved to Israel, and finally ended up in the United States the third year, you would have attended school for a total of 639 days. In Israel, you have attended 36 more days than in the United States. In Japan, you would have attended even longer: 27 more days than in Israel. How long is the school year in each of these countries?

-Is there a nuclear reactor near your city? The total number of reactors in the United States is 160, but not all of them are in operation. The number of operable reactors is four more than double the number of inoperable reactors. How many U.S. reactors are operable and how many are inoperable?

-The average American drinks 29 more Cokes per year than the average Mexican. If together they consume 555 Cokes per year, how many Cokes are consumed each year by the average American and how many by the average Mexican?

Yep they are stupid problems but hey at least they are easy to solve.