argument18 写的很迷茫 希望高手给点指点·十分感谢

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"In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County recently lowered its speed limit from 55 miles per hour to 45 on all major county roads. But the 55 mph limit should be restored, because this safety effort has failed. Most drivers are exceeding the new speed limit and the accident rate throughout Prunty County has decreased only slightly. If we want to improve the safety of our roads, we should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths and resurfacing rough roads. Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55 mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago."




In this argument, the editor concludes that Prunty County(PC) should replace the 45mph limit with 55mph limit and increase the lane widths and resurface the roads just as Butler County(BC) did five years ago. At first glance, this argument seems plausible, however , stringent scrutiny reveals that it is fraught with vague and suffers from a serious of logical flaws.
To begin with, the fact that most drivers exceeded the 45mph limit and a slight decrease in the accident rate after the implementation of the new speed limit are little indications that the new speed limit failed to improve the highway safety. Firstly, since the editor provides no evidence concerning the accident rates of both major roads with 45mph limit and the left ones without it, one possibility cannot be excluded is that there is a sharp decline in accident rate of the main roads, nevertheless, by the meantime, the rate has increased in the streets without the new speed limit, which lead to the slight decline in the overall accident rate. Secondly, drivers' speeding activities are due to their weak awareness of the importance of potential threaten of the high speed and no effective measures to punish them .Common sense informs us that the lower speed of driving leads to fewer chances of having an accident.
What Pc should do is to strengthen the punishments to drivers who disobey the rules and educate them to realize the danger of high speed.
Without taking these cases into consideration, the conclusion that the new safety effort has failed is unconvincing.

In addition,
the editor assumes unfairly that the fewer accidents report in BC is attributable to its road improvement and the 55mph play a positive role in promoting the safety of roads. Lacking evidence to substantiate the assumption, it is possible that
other factors significantly influence this result. For example, the government has strengthened the regulation of traffic issues and
had more police to patrol on the roads to avoid having accidents . In addition,
the 55mph may not play a positive role in reducing the accident rates. For instance, if
the government implemented the 45mph limit, the accidents in the BC will be much fewer , like 50percent fewer than before.
Since the editor fails to consider and rule out these and other factors, any conclusion drawn based on this assumption is unfounded.

Last but not least, the editor commits a fallacy of false analogy between BC and PC. Even if the road improvement project is effective in BC, it does not suffice to ensure the same success in PC. The editor overlooks the differences between these two countries. Perhaps, BC ‘s resurfacing rough roads and increasing lane widths lies in the fact that the roads of BC were
narrow and difficult , but the
condition of the roads in PC is completely reverse.
The roads there are wide and smooth enough. If so, there is no need to redone the road in PC and the conclusion concerning PC launching the same project as BC is groundless.

To sum up, this argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To strengthen the argument, the editor would have to provide clearer evidence -by way of stringent scientific studies and surveys -that the 45mph is unnecessary to improve the highway safety and the decline of the number of accidents in BC is due to its road improvement
project. Also useful would be any information concerning that the road condition in BC are similar to PC. Only with more affirmative evidence could this argument become more convincing.