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

The writer of the argument, based on the mentioned report, recommends that if Prunty County instead of lowering the speed limit, executes the same kind of road improvements project as Bulter County, the number of accidents in the country highways will decrease. However, this recommendation cannot be accepted as it is because it relies on a series of assumptions for the support of which there is no convincing evidence.

First of all, the writer refers to a report but did not indicate that how many highways were studied in the sample used. As we know, the larger the size of the sample, the more reliable and valid the findings are. Maybe in this report, only three or four highways in the country were examined. As a result it may not be representative of the exact status in the country highways. It follows that the findings of such a study is neither reliable or valid.

Secondly, a threshold assumption upon which the recommendation stands is that the writer assumed that highways in both countries are exactly similar in terms of lane widths, number of lanes, visibility, traffic, etc. we need to know whether the aforesaid parameters are the same in both places to jump such a recommendation. There is no evidence in the argument to prove that these road improvements projects accomplished in Prunty County would bring the same results in Bulter County so the recommendation is not persuasive as it does not pass in the analogy between Bulter County and Prunty County.

Thirdly, even if we assume that the above weaknesses are removed, there is another problem with the recommendation. The writer assumes that the decrease in accidents is solely due to the road improvements projects. However, there is no evidence in the argument to support this assertion. Perhaps some external parameters impacted the results. Maybe during this past 5 years the cars’ safety were improved due to efforts of car industry managers or new engineering and technologies. Or maybe people drive more carefully as a result of a safety instructive program which the government carried out in TV for example. Consequently, this recommendation is absurd because it fails to consider other probable concatenation of circumstances.

In the final analysis, the writer recommends the aforementioned road improvement project to decrease accident rate in Prunty County. However, the writer falls short to give any substantiate evidence to support the recommendation.