▶ Your Answer :
Reporting the Prunty County (PC)’s stable steady
accident numbers, the author claimed that PC needs to improve their roads and
follow what Butler County (BC) has done in the past in order to decrease the
number of accidents. However, this argument is not plausible because it is based
on a series of unproven assumptions, thus must have more evidence.
To
begin with, one might say that improving road conditions can be a solution to
PC’s case because poor road conditions are apparently not favorable for car
accident risks. This assumption can be applied to PC’s roads as well. However,
in order to make an informed and legitimate decision, whether or not the number
one reason in PC’s car accidents was the road condition should be analyzed with
evidence. For example, if drivers who went through accidents stated that bad
road condition caused it, it might be persuasive. However, the claim has not provided
this type of evidence.
In
addition to the argument about road conditions, the claims about following what
BC’s implemented five years ago must provide relevant evidence. First, in BC’s
case, have the three solutions about lane width, road surface, and visibility
worked effectively on the car accident rates? Even though the accident numbers
in BC decreased, we do not know why the better phenomenon happened. Perhaps
simply the car accident number decreased because of the lower car numbers due
to the fact of the residents unusual moving. Or perhaps only one remedy (e.g.,
widening the lane width) were effectively working on the problem. If it is the case,
PC does not necessarily invest their funds on the all three suggestions.
Also, the author
compared the decreasing number of last year with the number of five years ago;
however, it is not cogent analysis. In this statement, we clearly need to know
how the numbers have moved among the time frames of four, three, and two years
ago. What if the numbers of car accident kept increasing for the four years and
just decrease last year once? Then, we cannot draw the effective correlation
between the three suggestions and the accident numbers. Thus, the claims should
provide more lenient and concrete corroboration over the five years with regard
the number of car accidents.
Lastly, even
though assuming that the author provides all of the statistical data to support
his claims, more qualitative and in-depth data must be provided such as
interviews or case studies. As a matter of analyzing phenomena, numbers cannot
explain all of the causes and effects. For instance, if all the five years
statistics in BC’s case say that the numbers decreased continuously, there is
still a possibility that the three suggested reasons (short lane width, poor
surfaces, and low visibility) were not the main problems. Drivers’ interviews, field
notes, or more intimately driven case studies may figure out the unseen reasons
behind the scenes. Moreover, since the environment in the two counties may
different, this qualitative analysis should be implemented on drivers in both
PC and BC. Therefore, in addition to the numerical evidence, the author must
provide qualitative data to prove his assumptions.
In sum, Prunty
County’s officials must reconsider the claims because the arguments are based
on what might amount to scant evidence. Rather, in order to evaluate the claims
appropriately, the author should provide the following corroboration: whether
the BC’s all three solutions worked on the problem, how the accident numbers
moved during the whole five years in the past, what qualitative data (e.g.,
interview) said on the main causes in PC and BC. Without these supporting
evidences, the argument may remain unconvincing to decision makers. |