argument20，求赐教

likemyownwayUID: 2697209

20The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.

"The population of Balmer Island increases to 100,000 duing the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by each of the island's six moped and bicycle rental companies from 50 per day to 30 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council is sure to attain the 50 percent reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year in the neighboring island of Torseau, when Torseau's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."

------------------------------





In the letter, the author recommends that the town council should limit the number of rented mopeds to 30 per day in order to reduce accidents involving mopeds and pedestrian. To justify her recommendation, the author cites the case in a nearby island which implemented a similar limit. Plausible as it seems to be, the advice, when exhaustively considered, suffers from several flaws.

First of all, the author bases her recommendation on a series of assumptions, yet no evidence is provided to bolster these crucial assumptions. The threshold premise is most accidents are due to due to rented mopeds. But there is a possibility that it is cars that are authentic cause of the majority of such accidents. Also, private mopeds are likely to constitute a large portion of the total mopeds in the island, and for that matter, merely limiting number of mopeds rented by companies will be of no use. Either scenario, if true, will server to undermine the recommendation seriously.

Even assuming that rented mopeds are attributable to most of accidents, to substantiate her suggestion, the author establishes a general causal relationship between the decreased accident rate and Torseau's town council enforcing similar limits on moped rentals based on the mere fact that the latter happened before the former. Yet the author overlooks other possible factors that are authentic cause for decline. Maybe at the same time period, town council of Torseau made a stricter legislation on road safety, as a result of which, mopeds drivers tended to drive with more caution. For that matter, the decline of accidents involving mopeds are attributable to the lawmakers rather other the new limits. Without considering and ruling out this and other possibility, it is unwarranted to conclude that the limit on number of rented mopeds is effective.

Even assuming that decreased accidents at Torseau is attributable to the enforcement of new limits, the recommendation made by analogical deduction is nevertheless unpersuasive because the author fails to take into account possible differences between Torseau and Balmer that might invalidate the recommendation. It is as likely that Balmer has a much more severe weather, and in that sense, driving mopeds in Balmer is more dangerous that in Torseau. Without considering and ruling out such dissimilarities between the two islands, similar number limits may not suffer a likewise fate.

Finally, even I concede that this enforcement will be of use to attain the 50 percent reduction in moped accidents, yet the author fails to authenticate his conclusion that number of accidents involving pedestrians can be diminished. It is high possible that with less mopeds, pedestrians will still suffer from the risk of being injured, for a series of reasons rather that the amount of rented mopeds. For that matter, the validity of the recommendation is suspect.

In conclusion, the recommendation is unjustifiable as it stands. To make it more valid, the author must provide information to convince me that rented mopeds are the major cause for accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians. Additional evidence must be introduced in support for the assumption that the enforcement of the new limit in Torseau is attributable to the decreased number of accidents and that conditions relevant to road safety of the two islands are comparable to each other.