The present invention provides a system which calculates vehicle speeds from distance pulses utilizing vehicle acceleration. More particularly, the present invention calculates vehicle speed through a system comprising a speed input task and a speed output task. The speed input task generates a speed value and an acceleration value from a pulse train delivered by a distance sensor or electronic transmission. The acceleration, deceleration or steady state of the motor vehicle is determined in the input task through use of the distance sensor tolerance. The output task drives the speedometer according to the new speed value from the input task if a new speed value has been generated since the last execution of the output task. If no new speed value has been generated since the last execution of the output task, the output task drives the speedometer according to the acceleration value. Thus, the output task is executed periodically regardless of the sequence of pulses received in the input task.