ARGUMENT89 by zephyrqq

zephyrqqUID: 2260290

ARGUMENT89 - The following appeared in a newspaper published in the state of Celera.

"Speed limits on our state's highways should be eliminated in order to increase our state's prosperity. Because greater speed means more efficient travel, commercial deliveries will be faster, increasing business profits. Elimination of speed limits will also make driving more attractive to motorists, so that more people will use the highways, providing more highway toll revenues for the state. At the same time, safety on our highways will not be affected: daytime speed limits were eliminated last year in the western states of our country, and no significant increase in the number of accidents in these states has been reported."
字数：337    504   用时：00:30:00   加3分钟     日期：2008-3-3 12:31:21
自改过了，原来没有写结尾，还是写得不好

Before accepting the author's suggestion that speed limits should be eliminated so that their state would increase its prosperity, the reasoning process of the argument should be examined  carefully once more. The author makes  a series of false assumptions, and therefore his conclusion is unpersuasive.

To begin with, the author unfairly asserts that greater speed means more efficient travel and growing business profits. This statement rests on the implicit assumption that current traffic could not meet the needs of commercial deliveries. However, the author provides no evidence to tell us that this is the reality of the town. It is entirely possible that there is no understock or raw material shortage, or other business shortage caused by low traffic speed. Moreover, even if the low speed is the reason, there is no guarantee that after the elimination of speed limits, people would drive faster than before. Perhaps, they would be unwilling to enhance their speed for safety. Without ruling out this or other possibilities, the author's assertion is open to doubt.

Furthermore, another problem with this argument involves the assumption without justification that elimination of speed limits would attract more people to use to use the highways and provide more revenues for the state. Possibly, people in this state are extremely care about their travel safety. If so, they might thought that the elimination of speed limits makes the highway a dangerous place. If they do think so, the people  who use the highway would be even less, let alone offer more highway toll revenues to the state.

Finally, the author fails to make us believe that safety would not be affected. First, we do not know whether the speed limits during the daytime undermine the traffic safety of the west states or not, for one year is too short too draw a compelling conclusion. Secondly, the author makes a false analogy between the west states of the country and this state. He assumes that the conditions of these states are similar enough to apply the same policy. Nevertheless, there is no information in this argument showing that this is the exactly the case. It is likely that the situation in Celera is quite different from that of these western states. It is possible that unlike people in western states who would not drive too fast even the traffic limits is abolished, people in Celera would tend to drive much more fast than a safety speed unless there are speed limits. If so, the elimination of speed limits would threaten the safety of divers in Celera’s highway.

For all these reasons, this argument is unsubstantial as it stands. To better support it, the author should supply evidence that it is the low speed traffic that prevent the prosperity of business and the elimination of speed limits could indeed enhance traffic speed. In addition, he should ensure that more people will use the high way and more information to prove that this measure would not influence the safety on their highways would also be helpful.