The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette On Balmer Island where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation the population increases to 100 000 during the summer months To reduce the number of accidents involving

The argument claims that Balmer Island should limit the number of rented mopeds in summer time in order to decrease the moped accidents since the number of people and moped accidents in the town increase in summer times. Stated in this way the argument reveals examples of leap of faith and ill-reasoning. The conclusion of the argument, this prohibition will decrease the number of accidents, relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws such as logical fallacies, comparing apples with oranges.

First, the argument is stretched and undeveloped. The argument readily assumes that the number of accidents increases only in summer times. However, it does not provide any statistics regarding this fact. For example, there is a possibility that the moped accidents usually occur in winter times due to poor weather conditions. In addition, there is no clear evidence that states the number of rented mopeds in summer times and this number might already be under twenty five. In this case the proposed solution would not create any benefit. The argument would be much clearer if it explicitly stated the statistics about number of moped accidents during each season and number of mopeds rented by tourists.

Second, the argument claims that limiting number of rented mopeds will alleviate the number of accidents. Even if the rented mopeds are the main reason of the accidents, these limitations might not result with the desired outcomes. It is stated in the argument, mopeds are main transportation method and after limiting their number people might prefer to travel with car. Traveling with car in the island might be more risky for the people and result with the increase in the number of accidents. In addition, because of poor transportation methods, the tourists might not prefer to frequent Balmer Island and it would cause loss of money for the populace of island. If the argument had provided evidence about other means of transportation in the island is less risky than using mopeds then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.

Finally, the argument claims that Seaville town decreased number of accidents by applying a similar policy and Balmer Island would benefit with the same result after this prohibition. This is again very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between Seaville town and Balmer Island. There is a possibility that the road infrastructure of Balmer Island is different from Seaville Island. In addition, there might be much more moped users in Seaville town and this is the reason of this dramatic decrease. In fact, there is no clear data about number of people and rented mopeds in Seaville town. Without convincing evidence that shows relation between Seaville town and Balmer Island, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant statistics about accidents and number of moped users. In order to assess the merits of a certain decision, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.