argument18 道路安全和限速 欢迎战友们互拍！^-^

GladysryUID：198609

昨天上不了网，自己随便找了篇阿狗写写。今天贴上来才发现他不是高频，:L不过还是请各位战友拍拍，互派请给个连接。谢谢！

argument 18
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 faild. 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 raods, 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 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."



From the editorial, the author concerns a lot on the county's safety of roads and by displaying some existing situations, the author asserts that the previous 55 mph limit should be restored. In my view, anyone who carefully analyze the editorial can find that it is not convincing as it seems.

At the very beginning, the author points out that the change of speed limits was carried out "recently", such a vague description of the period makes the following assertion that the safety effort has failed rather rocky. If the recent means less than a month or so, the progress may not be very conspicuous but in the future the change will reveal how successful it is on decreasing the accident rate over the county. In the next sentence, the author said "most drivers are exceeding the new speed limit and the accident rate throughout Prunty County has decreased only slightly". Here the author uses meaningless "most" and "slightly" to support his assumpted conclusion rather than more convincing statistics such as the percentage of drivers who exceed the speed limit in the group of all the drivers and the total decreasement of accident rate after the programme's execution. In fact, if the author can not provide convincing statistics to the readers, it could probably just a personal assumption which could not be used as meaningful suggestion.

After a rather suspicious analyze, the editorial claims its suggestion that the Prunty County should restore the speed limit
to 55 mph and learn from the  Butler County's road improvement project. However, the analogy between the two could be fallacious. First, we do not know the road conditions of Prunty and Butler, if the existing road condition of Prunty is already better than that of the Butler, the further improvement of the road condition is possibly useless. And what about the geological features of the two? If there are extremely different geological features between the two, for example, the Prunty is mostly hilly while the Butler is all plain, then the speed limit project could be more suitable for Prunty rather than increasing lane widths.

Even if all the above have been mentioned were true, the final display about the big improvement in Butler again gives us hesitations about the real effect. We can see that the author's specious statistics comes from "reported accidents" during the past year. What does the "reported accidents" exactly mean? Large amounts of small accidents may probably not be included at all, therefore the improvement may not be so conspicuous as it seems. And what about other elements that may have conspicuous influence on the decreasement of accident rate? Such as the change of population, the regulated system of the road, the number of the total automobiles and so on. Unless all these questions are explained and could be excluded, the effectiveness of a merely "55 mph and the road improvement project" may be quite substantial.

To sum up, the author do reveal some specious facts to us, but with all these facts' uncertainty and the author's fallacious analogy between the Prunty and Butler make the editorial rather unreliable.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-7-28 at 12:43 ]

11yvetteUID：2102418

先占座^_^

11yvetteUID：2102418

From the editorial, the author concerns a lot on the county's safety of roads and by displaying some existing situations, the author asserts that the previous 55 mph limit should be restored. In my view, anyone who carefully analyze the editorial can find that it is not convincing as it seems.

At the very beginning, the author points out that the change of speed limits was carried out "recently", such a vague description of the period makes the following assertion that the safety effort has failed rather rocky. If the recent means less than a month or so, the progress may not be very conspicuous but in the future the change will reveal how successful it is on decreasing the accident rate over the county. In the next sentence, the author said "most drivers are exceeding the new speed limit and the accident rate throughout Prunty County has decreased only slightly" [这句话是全盘照抄好,还是转述、提取其中的重点好?] . Here the author uses meaningless "most" and "slightly" to support his assumpted conclusion rather than more convincing statistics such as the percentage of drivers who exceed the speed limit in the group of all the drivers and the total decreasement of accident rate after the programme's execution. In fact, if the author can not provide convincing statistics to the readers, it could probably just a personal assumption which could not be used as meaningful suggestion.这段的条理性非常好

After a rather suspicious analyze [analysis], the editorial claims its suggestion that the Prunty County should restore the speed limit to 55 mph and learn from the  Butler County's road improvement project. However, the analogy between the two could be fallacious. First, we do not know the road conditions of Prunty and Butler, if the existing road condition of Prunty is already better than that of the Butler, the further improvement of the road condition is possibly useless. And what about the geological features of the two? If there are extremely different geological features between the two, for example, the Prunty is mostly hilly while the Butler is all plain, then the speed limit project could be more suitable for Prunty rather than increasing lane widths. 这段的论证总得说还是蛮好的,相对于geological features, road condition这一块稍稍得薄了些,就是说better这里没有深入展开,怎样的道路状况算better,还是可以说一说的

Even if all the above have been mentioned were true, the final display about the big improvement in Butler again gives us hesitations about the real effect. We can see that the author's specious statistics comes from "reported accidents" during the past year. What does the "reported accidents" exactly mean? Large amounts of small accidents may probably not be included at all, therefore the improvement may not be so conspicuous as it seems. And what about other elements that may have conspicuous influence on the decreasement of accident rate? Such as the change of population, the regulated system of the road, the number of the total automobiles and so on [不可同时使用]. Unless all these questions are explained and could be excluded, the effectiveness of a merely "55 mph and the road improvement project" may be quite substantial.

To sum up, the author do reveal some specious facts to us, but with all these facts' uncertainty and the author's fallacious analogy between the Prunty and Butler make the editorial rather unreliable.

觉得Gladysry的argument写得真的很好的说(issue没有看过的说,呵呵),也不盲目套用模板,逻辑性也到位,加油限时成功就ok啦~~