解:$(1)$根据题意列方程组:
$ \begin {cases}a(v_{甲}+v_{乙})=a\\b (v_{甲}-v_{乙})=a\end {cases}$
化简得:$\begin {cases}v_{甲}+v_{乙}=1\\v _{甲}-v_{乙}=\frac {a}{b}\end {cases}$
解得:$v_{甲}=\frac {a+b}{2b}$,$v_{乙}=\frac {b-a}{2b}$
$ (2) $由$\frac {v_{甲}}{v_{乙}}=\frac {7}{3}$得:$\frac {\frac {a+b}{2b}}{\frac {b-a}{2b}}=\frac {a+b}{b-a}=\frac {7}{3}$
交叉相乘得:$3(a+b)=7(b-a)$
整理得:$10a=4b$,即$\frac {a}{b}=\frac {2}{5}$