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 patro

The author states that in order to improve highway safety, the Prunty County (PC) should take the similar project in Bulter County (BC) as the precedent failure of speed limit policy in their own region and the success of road improvement project (RI project) in BC. However, this author fails to provide sufficient information to permit a proper evaluation of argument’s reasoning. Each point of deficiency is discussed separately below.

First of all, the author believes that it is the RI project that principally decrease the number of reported accidents in BC. However, he provides no specific information wether other factors play a role in this decrease or not. Lacking such evidence, the author’s statement may mask other (and potentially more significant) causes of decline in accident number in BC. It is entirely possible that the decline in polulation in the vicinity of BC is the main reason. For some reason, probably the economic crisis in local market or irreversable environmental problem, the population of BC sharply decreased. Consequently, the decline in number of accidents in BC should ascribe to the decrease in population instead of the RI project. Of course, it is also possible that the punishment became harsher after the launching of RI project: every driver who violates traffic laws will receive a more severe fine. Probably because of this policy, local drivers become more discreet. Thus the accident number decreased.

What’s more, it seems presenting a scenario that as the BC successfully improve the highway safety by employing the RI porject, the PC could also reach a comparable effect by launching similar project. However, no evidence shows that these two cities are consistent in the aspect of traffic condition. Properly speaking, the road system of two cities may be totally different. For example, the BC is a totally newly-built city, and lot of infrastructure are underdeveloped, the roads are uneven, the traffic system is chaotic, etc. In that case, the RI project could largely ameliorate the traffic condtion in BC thus play a remarkable role in limitation of accident number. However, the PC is an old, well-developed city, the road condition and others are comprehensively optimized. Thus the kind of project like RI project may not have an expected effect in PC.

Finally, the feasiblility of RI project in PC should also be dicussed properly. Obviously, the author fails to provide enough evidence wether his advice is practicable or not and thus makes his reasoning untenable and unrealistic. When we talks about the RI project in PC, the city condition should be analyzed carfully. For example, while the PC is well established, the space of improvement may be limited by the building alongside the road, and thus, the RI project could not be employed there. Also, it is possible that while the operation of RI project need to suspend the use of road for months-long even years-long, the PC has a heavy traffic load everyday. In that case, the RI seems unlikely to be employed by the government due to the city role of PC.

In general, three main points: the information wether other factors play a role in decrease of accident number in BC or not; the evidence if these two cities are consistent in the aspect of traffic condition; and the feasibility of RI project in PC. All these information the author fails to provide. To make the argument sounder, I highly recommend the author to give the evidence aforementioned. Then and only then, can the author’s proposal be logically advisable.