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发表于 2007-5-31 10:17:59
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Arguement18
The following appeared in an editorial in a Prunty County newspaper.
"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."
The argument is well-presented, but not thoroughly well-reasoned. By making a comparison of Prunty County, an area of a lower speed limit and subsequently slight improvement of the accident rate, with Butler County, which have a higher speed limit but improve the road condition and therefore suffers fewer accidents, the argument for undertaking the project of Prunty County's road improvement in order to decrease accidents seems logical. However, these assumptions are unwarranted.
Firstly, the arguer gratuitously assumes that the failure of lowering speed limit is due to the poor road condition. That is to say, in Prunty County, the accident rate mainly depends on its road condition. However, the arguer failed to provide any evidence to enhance this supposition and make it more convincing. It is possible that the road condition of Prunty County seems better than that of Butler County, but the phenomenon of exceeding the speed limit is more often in the Prunt Country. Thus, we should consider other alternatives besides road condition. Such alternatives may include the fact that, there are more unreliable drivers, such as greenhorns or young man full of passion, driving in the road. Even though we lower its speed limit, because of their maladroit driving skill and low standards of morality, they fail to observe these regulations carried out recently.
Secondly, arguer uses the experience of Butler County, instead of convincing survey; to illustrate that Prunty County should undertake the same kind of road improvement project carried out by Butley County five years ago. During the long period of five years, Butley County may the many important measures to improve the safety of their roads, and increasing lane widens and resurfacing rough road just contributes a little to this whole improvement. They succeed at last just because they combine these small tips together. Thus, this is not the same case in Prunty County, implementing the unilateral methods to solve this accident problem. In addition, if we ignore the above factors, the arguer fails to make a contrast between the current Prunty County and Butler County five years before, such as the road condition, the accident causes and so on, to see whether it is valuable to make it as a reference. Suppose that, the accident rate throughout Butley County was very high five years ago, even if there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents this past year, yet it is still higher than that of the Prunty County. Thus, we still should not apply their experience to our city apparently.
Overall, the argument is not well reasoning and lacks credibility, because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lead to strong support to what the arguer maintains. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer would have to provide more information to show that the poor road condition leads to the slight decreasing accident rate even by lowering its limit speed. Additionally, it would be essential for the arguer to make an effective and representative survey support the argument.
[ 本帖最后由 yangzengli 于 2007-6-3 00:36 编辑 ] |
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