The following appeared in a letter to the school board in the town of Centerville. "All students should be required to take the driver's education course at Centerville High School. In the past two years, several accidents in and around Centerville have i

The writer of the argument concludes that all students at Centerville High School should take the driver’s education course as the traffic safety program. To support this claim, the arguer cites the several accidents were happening near the Centerville High School in the last two years that teenagers have involved; however, this conclusion cannot be accepted as it is in that it rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.

The first problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that lack of driving skills among teenage driver is the cause of most of the accidents around Centerville High School. However, other factors which may cause the accidents are ignored by the author. Maybe some other factors such as lacking traffic signs at intersections, improper geometric design of roads, and demolition of asphalt pavement have played a prevailing role in this situation. In this case, taking driver's education course at school has made no remarkable change in accident rate.

Another problem with the argument is the author provide no comparative information about the accident rate during earlier years. However, without considering these statistic we cannot evaluate the circumstances. Maybe the rate of accident of during these years has a decreasing trend. Moreover, considering just two years is small enough to give a statistically meaningful result. Therefore, the findings of such a study are neither reliable nor valid.

A third problem with the argument is that the arguer fails to inform us the number of parents who have no time to teach their children to drive. However, there is no evidence to definitely prove that all parents have no time to train driving skills. Maybe many numbers of parents can be a good driver instructor for their children. Or maybe some parents made a driver training group and trained their own children. Therefore, more evidence is required to ensure robustness of this claim.

In the final analysis, the writer’s conclusion cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in the body paragraphs above, it depends on a number of assumptions each of which is questionable. To bolster it the writer has to provide all effective factors related to accidents among teenage students, statistical information on accident rate during past years, and evidence to demonstrate the percentage of parents who have no time to teach their children. So, the conclusion can only be accepted if the weakness already referred to are all removed.