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 author of the argument makes a conclusion that implementation of limits on moped rentals during summertime will decrease number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrian. This conclusion is merely based on a dubious assumption that as this measure has already attained positive results year on the neighboring island of Seaville then it will surely have the same results on Balmer Island. To substantiate above recommendation some crucial questions must be addressed, otherwise it could not be taken for granted as impartial.

First question that needs to be asked in order to evaluate recommendation is what percent of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians occur during summertime and other seasons, and what is the difference between those. That question is crucial because as the author correlates increasing of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians with population increasing in the summers exactly the evidence that majority of moped accidents occur in other seasons will severely undermine the author’s statement. Thus, the author has to provide additional statistical information about moped accidents during different seasons in order to make his recommendation cogent.

The next question that needs to be asked is who is responsible for those accidents: pedestrians or moped drivers themselves. Perhaps in summer season the traffic situation does not change much but the flow of tourists who are relaxed and do not pay much attention on safety while they are outside causes increasing of the accidents. If true, it might be better solution in order to abate the number of accidents to make some improvements related to pedestrian safety like spreading out the information about rules on the roads among the new coming tourists or building special walking tracks that will diminish probability of the accident occurrence. Therefore, without answer on this question, the recommended measures might be too hastily and will bring no results.

The last and the most significant question that needs to be raised is whether the overall conditions on two islands are similar. The author provides us with no information about the neighboring island. We do not know if there is the same amount of newcomers in certain seasons or whether the traffic situation there has the same patterns. It is quite plausible that on the island of Seaville streets and roads are narrower than in the Balmer Island and increased number of mopeds in summers impaired traffic and led to accidents. In this case, measures that council of the Seaville island took were absolutely reasonable. That is to say, without evidence that premises of both islands resembles, we could not take the author’s recommendation for granted as well-reasoned.

In conclusion, the above recommendation could be accepted as appropriate but only after getting answers on extremely important question that will help to fully evaluate the possible outcome. Otherwise, we should be wary about accepting the truth of the argument conclusion.