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 involved teenage drivers. Since a number of parents in Centerville have complained that they are too busy to teach their teenagers to drive, some other instruction is necessary to ensure that these teenagers are safe drivers. Although there are two driving schools in Centerville, parents on a tight budget cannot afford to pay for driving instruction. Therefore an effective and mandatory program sponsored by the high school is the only solution to this serious problem."
In this argument the letter shows a sign of implication for drivers education to be made mandatory at Centerville High School, trying to convince us on the basis of research made in last two years due to accidents that involved teenage drivers. Close inspection of this argument reveals , however, that it provides a scant support for the lone reason mentioned. It neither supports the proof of the teenage drivers being undertrained nor the mistakes made only by teenage drivers.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, as mentioned in the argument, in the past two years several accidents in an arond centerville have involved teenage drivers sounds very narrow as past two years data is very limited and cant totally interpret on the same. Even,it mentions several accidents and hence it can be any number so no clear distinction between the data available for only teenage drivers prone to more accidents.
Secondly, the actual factors may be different for road accidents as to what has been said in argument. It fails to recognize what actually may be the inevitable factors for road accidents say road signals not logically and properly built, the road construction may be of poor quality tending the newly learnt teenage drivers to fall for it,even drivers rash driving due to casual attitude, accidents occurring due to lenient traffic rules or because of indisciplined traffic laws. It can also be a crowded place which may increase chances of accidents. Here, the author fails to convince that the teenage drivers are more prone to accidents as they are lacking safe driving skills or education.
Considering the fact of parents being not able to afford on monetory terms or being busy all around and not able to pay attention seems quite half hazard derivation for making it compulsory in schools. The author fails to mention on why the education be made compulsory on terms of just factul data of two years and few parents being ignorant to put their kids in driving schools.
In all, as it stands the authors argument is week. To strengthen it the author has to provide with an evidence for why teenagers are more prone to accident than adults and also why should driver's education be made compulsory for all teenagers. To better assess the argument, it would be useful to make a deep research on other factors such as traffic rules, road safety and other things that may lead to accidents.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough the motive of the letter to the school board seems to be very nice and helpful, the measures it has suggested does not sound that convincing. It has talked about the number of accidents in the last 2 years. What about the number of accidents before these 2 years ? If there were fewer accidents before 2 years then something must have changed or went wrong in these years which has resulted in increase number of accidents and it has got nothing to do with teenagers education of driving. The letter has not talked anything about as upto what extent the number of accidents have increased. Is it 1 out of every 100 teenager or more ? If this is the case then forcing all the students to taking driving lessons doesnt sounds good. Talking about these accidents, its no-where mentioned that whether these teenagers have got themselves injured while driving or while doing something else. Even if they got themselves injured while driving, is it because of rash driving or because of bad conditions of road or rash driving by adults.
ReplyDeleteSecondly the letter has talked about taking the services of any of the 2 driving school in Centerville, even when they are so expensive that parents cannot afford to pay them. Now there is a very important point which needs to be considered over here. Has the school board verified that these driving schools are good and teenagers will actually get benefited after taking driving lessons from them. There could be a case that these teenagers already know what these schools might teach and then it would be a total waste of money.
Instead school should itself try to find out what is the actual reason behind any such accident involving teenage driving. It should also instruct students about right ways of driving and encourage student to take proper safety measures, like wearing helmets and driving in such area where there is less traffic.