Argument 13 – 通过限速减少事故（Evidence题型）

The short passage:

13.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 speedlimit. 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.

The introduction:
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.

The sample answer:

Prunty county, after frustrated by the speed-limiting measure, intends to     follow Butler’s remedy in improving highway safety. This seems plausible when Butler’s improvement in highway safety has achieved (摆出例子呈现的事实，对其做适当让步). Yet, without affording specific evidences about the effectiveness of Butler’s method and the reasonableness of imitating it， this argument tends to be groundless. Unless pertinent proofs are presented，this suggestion is no more than a parody.

The suggestion on implementing what Butler County is conducting might be untenable. Granted, since a number of drivers overlook the speed limit when driving, this measure is thought as ineffective （让步：此举措没多少人响应，似乎无效）. Yet, it is possible that drivers obey the rules of speed-limiting and the number of accidents decline accordingly. Moreover, Prunty’s current method of improving highway safety tends to work when the speed limit is lowered more significantly （对于数字的讨论）.Namely, a speed limit below 45 is more likely to ensure the safety of driving in highways （补充数字上的逻辑疑点的细节）. Plus, the number of the decrease is obscure, making the effectiveness of the measure difficult to gauge.It is thus too hasty to deny this means when the feasibility of it fails to be detected（以上均为对于举措的有效性的讨论，所以此处做一个简单小结）. Lastly, in addition to vehicles’ speed,other culprits like drivers’ fatigue when driving, unpleasant road conditions and defective infrastructure are all prone to yield traffic accidents (忽略其他变量).The aforementioned flaws weaken the persuasiveness of the argument.

The success that Butler County achieved in reducing accidents indicates the method is worth employing. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily represent speed reduction makes no sense. If the speed of 55 mph is the one after reduction, speed limiting might play a driving role in alleviating accidents (关于数字的考察主要从两个角度：1：量的问题；2：比较的问题). Supposing 55 mph is the highest speed, 25% reduction in accidents fails to verify speed limiting is unnecessary as 25% may be insignificant if the number of accidents five years ago is small (继续针对数字上的逻辑疑点进行讨论). When the description of the change of the accidents is suspicious, the argument is less likely to be verifiable.

Conclusion

（略）

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