Argument Essay:-->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

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Argument Essay:-->
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 patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. Prunty County should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55 mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago.......
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

The author’s argument that Prunty County would be able to increase safety on highways if they follow the same kind of road improvement project as that of Butler County seems to be tenable at first glance. However, conclusion relies on assumptions for which there are no clear evidences.

To begin with, author provided an argument that Prunty County had lowered its speed limit still they remain unable to reduce accidental rate, but once Punty County follow Butler County changes then it is easy for Prunty County to increase safety. However, the evidence provided by the author weakens the argument because author did not illuminate any light on the driving of the people travelling through Pruty County highways. It could be possible that the drivers do rash driving on the highway near Pruty County. There are also other reasons like, may be most of the people travel over there at nights and if they do rash driving in night then it is obvious that they might meet the accidents.

In addition to it, author considered that Prunty county should increase highway lane width same as that of Butler County done on their highway to reduce accidental rate. However, it could be possible that the traffic rules or traffic management through traffic police is not appropriate in Prunty County. If heavy traffic is located on the highways of Prunty County then it is required to have proper traffic management rules and if traffic police is not doing proper management then accidental rate does not decrease. The increase of lane width in due to traffic jams whether County does not help them because traffic jams will always occur which cause fatal accidents.

Furthermore, author provided an argument that the resurfacing of rough highways and improving visibility at dangerous intersections reduces the accidental rate in Butler County and deployment of these activities help Prunty County to improve safety. But author does not provide any evidence which de-scribes the surroundings of Prunty County highways. If Prunty County highways are surrounded with dense forest and there are various animals live over there then increase in accidental rate is obvious because it could be a possibility that animals came in between the roads which got hit with the vehicles. This will cause a serious damage to any human.

To sum up, author may not necessarily be wrong to assert that if Prunty County employ same road improvement projects as that of Bounty County then it is easy for it to increase safety. However, the evidences provided by the author are not enough to substantiate the argument. To bolster, the argument author has to provide more conclusive evidences which will explain the appropriate reason behind increase in accident on Prunty County highways so that proper prevention can be done against those problems.

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Average: 7.6 (5 votes)
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Argument 1 -- You are talking about the people, maybe...

Argument 2 -- Partly OK

Argument 3 -- Partly OK
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Argument 2 and Argument 3 can be put in one argument.

Need to find flaws from the statement and then argue against one by one:

Assumption 1:
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 patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit.

Argument 1: Need to see the average speed, maybe it is 50 mph or 49 mph after the speed limit policy, doesn't necessarily go back to 55 mph.

Assumption 2:
Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55 mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago

Argument 2: '25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County' may not result from 'increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections.', but other reasons like you talked about in argument 2 and 3.

Argument 3: The policy works well in location A, doesn't mean it will work too in location B.

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 464 350
No. of Characters: 2324 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.641 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.009 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.461 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 195 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.294 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.504 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.824 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.387 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.595 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.116 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5

The goal of the argument:
1. restore the speed limit back to 55
2. increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections.

So you can argue against:

1. It doesn't necessarily go back to 55 mph. Maybe a number between 55 mph and 45 mph.

2. Your argument 2 and 3.

3. The policy works well in location A, doesn't mean it will work in location B.