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 involv

The town of Balmer may benefit from the policy of putting restrictions on renting mopeds to reduce the accidents of mopeds and pedestrians, however the author fails to give a cogent argument to support the usefulness of the policy for Balmer. The author adduces to the same policy that were seemingly worked in the neighboring island of Seaville. However, there are several vague points in the argument, each raises questions needed to be addressed by the author.

First, is it enough just to regulate the renting of mopes during summer? The author should ask. Although it is in summer that population rises to 100,000, the rise might not be significant. As there is no evidence about the constant population of the Balmer town, the rise might be only an insignificant fraction, take 0.000001 percent of the population for instance, which is not considerable at all. Then, the body of the population would mostly consist natives, and it casts doubts on the argument: First, the summer time might not be the crucial time that accidents happen, and secondly, the people might have bought the mopeds instead of temporary renting mopeds. If these are the case the author’s conclusion would be a fallacy.

Secondly, the author needs to ask whether there was any alternative policy taken by Seaville to reduce the accident rates or it was exclusively the restriction on renting mopeds reducing the accident rates. As evidences are absent from the argument, it is possible that Seaville has taken parallel strategies and the reduction in accidents is chiefly due to the complementary strategies rather than just restrictions on renting mopeds. If this is the case, then Seaville experience cannot suffice to be supportive of the author's argument.

Finally, even if Seaville’s drastic results are only because of restriction on renting mopeds, the situation in Balmer may differ from Seaville. Then, is the policy also viable for the Balmer city? It is possible that the accidents happen because of the unmentioned defects of Balmer’s roads. The infrastructures might not be standard: there might be many potholes in the road, the lighting system may not work properly. Furthermore, is it enough to just restrict the renting companies? The numbers of renting companies might be so high in Balmer that even with reducing the renting mopeds we may still not see any notable decrease in the numbers of driving mopeds in the town. If these are the case, then the source of accidents remains intact with or without the restrictions on renting mopeds.

In short, as discussed, the argument is replete with many vague points defying any certain evaluation. Therefore, the conclusion resting on such an inconclusive argument cannot be tenable.