In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by the highway patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. Prunty County should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. 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.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument
While it is true that highway safety must be improved at Prunty County as there is high accident rate, this author's argument does not make a cogent case for emulating Prunty County with Bulter County. According to the author, to improve safety at Prunty County they should undertake the project which has already completed by Bulter County. While the correlations could be logical and probable, there may be hidden factors that are responsible for no improvement in highway safety.
The author's first mistake is to assume that the speed limit is the cause of most of the accident. He claims that even though speed limit has been decreased at the Prunty County there is no significant change in accident rate. This is the classical case of confusing correlation with causion. It could be because of irresponsibility of driver or the reflection of headlight at night time which cause the vague vision. Another reason such as drivers are distracted because of one or the other reason. Perhaps limiting the speed has made no remarkable change in accident rate.
Based on the report by highway petrol author also claims that many driver are exceeding the speed limits. It is not clear however, the scope and validity of survey. Does this report is accurate? The data might have provided based on small spectrum intern it could not represent the overall scenario at Prunty County. If the report by highway petrol is based on CCTV camera or 24.7 observations, it may have provided the real picture at Prunty County. We just do not know unless the survey is fully representative, valid and reliable, it can not be used to effective back the author's argument.
Moreover, the author implies that to improve the safety at Prunty County they should emulate with Bulter County as there is less accident rate. This implement is unsubstantiated. Yes, the accident rates at Bulter County has been decreased in last five years but the author have provided no precise evidence that this remarkable decreased rates is because of the project in which they have raised the lane widths, resurfaced rough highway and improved visibility. The decrease in rate of accident could be because of decreased traffic ratio or many people refuse to drive through Bulter County. Regardless whether the accident rate is decrease because of improvement in quality of road or the other reason, the author does not effectively show the connection between the decreased accident rate and renovation of the roads.
Examining all the various angles and factors cited by the author, the argument does not justify that to improve safety at Prunty County it should undertake the project which already completed by Bulter County . while the proposal does not highlight a possibility, more information is require to warrant any action.
