argument18【Chasing For "6" Score】第一次作业

headmonkeyUID: 2457387

TOPIC: ARGUMENT18 - 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."
WORDS: 493        TIME: 03:30:00          DATE: 2008-3-2

提纲：1.首先，BC所实施的两项措施并不一定是导致BC交通事故下降的原因，还有其他因素，宏观经济，培训制度，天气状况等都有关系。
         2.其次，即使承认BC的两项措施确实是BC取得成功的原因，但PC与BC的情况不同，可能并不适用于PC.
         3.最后，即使以上两点中的假设都能证明，这两项措施确实可行且适用于PC，对限速失败的认定也是不让人信服的。对主要路段的限速无法从全部路段的事故数据中得到证明，另外限速实施的时间也许很短，还未见效。


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In this argument, the author claims that Prunty County failed to improve its highway safety by reducing speed limit and they should instead undertake Butler County’s solutions as increasing lane widths and resurfacing rough roads. To support these assertions the author points out the traffic rate has only decreased slightly since the speed limit reduced, and that in Butler County decreased by 25% during five years with a 55mph speed limit. At first glance, the argument might be somehow reasonable, but close scrutiny reveals that it contains several unconvincing assumptions and is therefore unpersuasive.
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First of all, the author assumes unfairly indicates a causal relation between increasing lane widths and resurfacing rough roads between Butler County’s achievement gotten on road-safety during last five years. There could be many other factors, such as the overall economic, a tougher training system of drivers, and even better weather conditions, which will also lead to the effective efforts on road-safety. Without accounting for all other explanations, the arguer cannot reasonably conclude that Butler County’s two solutions is responsible for the success on its traffic problems.
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Second, even I concede that increasing lane widths and resurfacing rough roads is attributable to resolve traffic problems, the arguer fails to consider possible differences between Butler County and Prunty County that might help to bring about a different result to traffic rate. For instance, government of Butler County perhaps have no spare money for these road policy, or Prunty County’s car owners only stands for a small part of civilians. For that matter, a road project as increasing lane widths or resurfacing rough roads cannot achieve the same effect if Prunty County
Simply follows Butler County’s experience.
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Third, even if the arguer can substantiate all of the foregoing assumptions, the argument is based on a hasty generalization. According to the editorial, the cited studies on all major road is insufficient to draw any general conclusion whether the new speed policy  failed or not on all roads accoding to the slightly decline of the overall accident rate . Perhaps this method worked well on those major roads and the traffic rate decreased significantly. However, on other roads without the implementation of this measure traffic rates might even increased.  As a result, the overall accident rate merely increased slightly. Or perhaps,the measure has just be taken for months, the drivers even have not accepted it. Thus, lacking reliable evidence of effectiveness of this new measure, I cannot accept the author’s point of the new speed limit have few efforts on road-safety in Prunty County
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In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive. To convince me that Prunty County should emulate Butler County, the author must provide more evidence, such as all other factors that may have a impact on road-safety in both countries. To better assess the problem. I would also need to know more information of the traffic  on all major road since the new speed limit had been put into force