Instead of blaming an automobile accident on driver error, insurance c

Question

Instead of blaming an automobile accident on driver error, insurance companies should first try to figure out why the error was made by analyzing flaws in road design, automobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license. Only then will the insurance companies be able to effectively issue guidelines to prevent future accidents, instead of merely punishing the incidental driver.

Which of the following is a presupposition of the argument above?

(A) Driver error is not a significant factor in most automobile accidents.

(B) Automobile manufacturers should be the agents who investigate automobile accidents and not insurance companies.

(C) Stricter government regulation of the automobile and highway construction industries would make automobile travel safer.

(D) Investigation of automobile accidents should contribute to the prevention of future accidents.

(E) Most drivers who make errors in driving repeat those errors unless they are retrained.

sayantanc2k · Accepted Answer

Conclusion: Future accidents can be prevented   ONLY   by issuing guidelines by insurance companies (based on analysis of flaws in road design, automobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license.)
In other words, there is NO OTHER WAY to prevent future accidents than to issue guidelines.

Option E: Most drivers who make errors in driving repeat those errors unless they are retrained.
Negate the above: Most drivers who make errors in driving DO NOT repeat those errors.

If the drivers do not repeat those errors, then at least some future accidents will be prevented because of the cautiousness of the drivers who already met with an accident. The cause of such prevention would then be that fact that those drivers already met with an accident and hence became cautious of not repeating them - the reason would  not  be that there were guidelines issued by insurance companies. Thus guidelines by insurance companies would not be the ONLY way to prevent future accidents. The argument breaks.

Since negated option E breaks the argument, option E is a required assumption.

MahBir · Answer

E seems right to me.

argument is trying to convince that the insurance companies should investigate road designs and other factors, that means if these conditions are responsible for the accidents, drivers are more likely to be in accident again unless they are (re)trained to handle these conditions better next time.

where as D is not assumption, its stated in argument itself, additionally the word "should" reduces its chances of being right.

Posted from my mobile device

thevenus · Answer

this might be helpful instead-of-blaming-an-airline-accident-on-pilot-error-13653.html?fl=similar

Temurkhon · Answer

"Only then" in last sentence says that it is causal conclusion. So any assumption that eliminates alternative cause, reverse causation or data errors is true

A. It is main point but not an assumption
B. Out of scope at all
C. Introduces alternative cause but not eliminate it, so weakens conclusion
D. Answer that I selected but "analyzing flaws" is the same as investigation so it repeats the premise but we know that assumption is unstated premise
 E. Eliminate the drivers error as alternative factor to be considered [/highlight

E is too much masked

shagalo · Answer

E is correct …. My analysis as follow :

The conclusion : the insurance companies SHOULD investigate road design, automobile designs and driver's license.
why would the issuance companies investigate all that ??
because :
Premise 1: they want to issue guidelines to prevent future accidents. …… AND
premise 2: they don't want to blame the driver on the accident.

so, answer E will be the Hidden premise or the assumption as follow :

issuance companies wants to prevent future accidents. if the drivers who make accidents retrained, then they can prevent accidents.

ZeroIQ · Answer

Question is to judge an assumption which means to identify the hidden thinking of the author .. Option D is already mentioned in the passage so it can't be the OA .

Just checked the answer with the expert its E

ketangulati · Answer

I may be wrong but this is my understanding.

The question asked - which of the following is the presupposition in the argument above?
Now, very clearly, the argument is - "Do not merely punish the driver, there could be other reasons for these accidents to occur which the author is recommending the insurance companies to look at and clearly suggests them that there is no point in punishing the driver times and again, until we do not check those hidden causes of the road accidents".

The presupposition that the author has made here is the fact that it has been considered that punishing the driver will help check the situation - these punishments logically are fines, license cancellations could be anything but pertaining to the driver and hence an indicative of retraining the driver doubting his abilities. Hence to me 'E' makes sense.

===
+1 Kudos for the help, is the best way to thank and contribute...

KarishmaB · Answer

Responding to a pm:

I am not happy with both (D) and (E).

Here is the argument:
Insurance companies blame drivers for accidents and punish them. 
Instead, they should try to figure out why the error was made by analyzing flaws in road design, automobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license.

Conclusion: Investigation of roads, automobiles and drivers is necessary to issue guidelines to prevent future accidents.

(D) is not an assumption. "Investigation of automobile accidents" is too generic. We don't know what it means. Even if we assume that it means "try to figure out why the error was made by analyzing flaws in road...", we are already given this. We are given that "investigation" is necessary to effectively issue guidelines to prevent future accidents.

(E) is a little far fetched. The argument presupposes that people who make driving errors may not be eligible to drive i.e. they may be bad drivers and may need retraining. Now we don't know whether those drivers repeat those errors, commit other errors or other drivers commit the same errors. All the argument is saying is that we will not be able to prevent accidents by punishing the drivers alone.

akhilshrmaa · Answer

Q. Instead of blaming an automobile accident on driver error, insurance companies should first try to figure out why the error was made by analyzing flaws in road design, automobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license. Only then will the insurance companies be able to effectively issue guidelines to prevent future accidents, instead of merely punishing the incidental driver.

Now, acc to me D should be the right answer. Why? Because the argument claims that if insurance companies try to figure out why the error was made (an investigation of the accident), then only it will be able to issue guidelines to prevent future accidents ( contributing to prevention of future accidents). 
Can use negation also: Investigation of automobile accidents should NOT contribute to the prevention of future accidents.
It implies that even if insurance co find out the real errors it will do no good towards preventing future accidents. This is just the opposite of the argument.

Now E mentions about repetition of the error unless retrained. This indicates that the accidents can actually be decreased by retraining, hence an investigation may not be required. Does not support the argument.

Kudos!!

AkshdeepS · Answer

Answer choice E is a correct assumption. Premise "Instead of blaming the drivers, Insurance companies should first try to figure out why the error was made by analysing flaws in road design, auto-mobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license". Option D is stated in the argument so it cant be the assumption..In choice E it states " if we only blame the drivers for the accidents always, then the real cause of the accidents we will never know..AND as the reason is unknown, there is always a possibility that the same error will occur again..We cant trained the drivers for the unknown errors...we must know the right reason only then it can be rectified. Only blaming the drivers will not solve the issue as they are always prone to make the same error.

ada453 · Answer

Clearly E

The argument states that the insurance companies can reduce crashes by providing guidelines on how drivers can avoid accidents. If the reason why people crash varies, then it will be impossible for the insurance companies to draw up any constructive guidelines.

However, if there are a finite number of reasons why people crash, and people crash for those reasons all the time, then the insurance company can write about how to avoid those driving errors and this will prevent crashes.

Think of it this way:
There is a blind turn on a mountain after a long stretch of straight road. If there is no warning that it is a hairpin turn, you and everyone else is going to take the turn too fast and fly off the mountain (I know I would). However if after multiple people have flown off the mountain, the government puts a sign that says "slow down, tight turn ahead," then you will take the turn more slowly and not fly off the mountain. i.e. if multiple people make the same mistake over and over and you put a warning that says "hey, don't do that," you'll prevent this mistake.

Shiv2016 · Answer

Instead of blaming an automobile accident on driver error, insurance companies should first try to figure out why the error was made by analyzing flaws in road design, automobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license. Only then will the insurance companies be able to effectively issue guidelines to prevent future accidents, instead of merely punishing the incidental driver.
Conclusion: insurance companies should first try to figure out why the error was made by analyzing flaws in road design, automobile designs and in criteria to determine eligibility for a driver's license.
The author is suggesting a different approach to effectively issue guidelines to prevent accidents.

Argument map could be:
INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD FIGURE OUT THE ERROR FOLLOWING A DIFFERENT PROCEDURE AS MENTIONED

THIS WOULD HELP TO ISSUE EFFECTIVE GUIDELINES TO PREVENT FUTURE ACCIDENTS
This shows that there is a clear flaw in the way the insurance companies work and it has not done MUCH to prevent accidents.

Which of the following is a presupposition of the argument above?

A) Driver error is not a significant factor in most automobile accidents.
Negated statement: Driver error is a significant error in ……
If it is so, how can this strengthen the conclusion or make our belief in conclusion more stronger.
INCORRECT. This choice is same as E.

B) Automobile manufacturers should be the agents who investigate automobile accidents and not insurance companies.
OUT OF SCOPE. It does not help in anyway to understand why we need the new procedure.

C) Stricter government regulation of the automobile and highway construction industries would make automobile travel safer.
OUT OF SCOPE. Same reason as B.
D) Investigation of automobile accidents should contribute to the prevention of future accidents.
This makes the most sense. If this were not the case, then the plan would fail.
CORRECT 
E) Most drivers who make errors in driving repeat those errors unless they are retrained.
Does not matter much. How will this plan help? No idea. INCORRECT. This could be a justification from the insurance company of why they followed the earlier plan. But this choice in no way contributes to understand the conclusion.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Premise: The only way to prevent accidents is to find out the root cause by analyzing reasons for errors. Conclusion: Insurance companies should carry out such analysis, rather than blame the drivers. Option D is a restatement of the premise of the argument, not an unstated assumption. Therefore D is not the answer. (I would suggest not to use negation so frequently, because doing so might lead to wrong answers, especially in such cases as above, in which an option is a restatement of the conclusion or the premise.) The following post states why option E is correct: instead-of-blaming-an-automobile-accident-on-driver-error-137260-40.html#p1778152

SVaidyaraman · Answer

The conclusion is new guidelines are necessary to prevent future accidents by drivers or in other words there needs to be retraining of the drivers to prevent future accidents. So the assumption is unless drivers are retrained , they will keep making accidents or in other words they repeat errors if they are not retrained. . which is what is stated in E.

D is not an assumption because we are not inferring it but it is more the gist of the argument.

SWAT09 · Answer

Can anyone please explain why option A is incorrect? On negating - Driver error is the significant factor in most automobile accidents weakens the argument by conveying that the accidents are entirely due to driver's fault and thus does not need any further analysis of other factors such as highway design and automobile design?

Skywalker18 · Answer

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , mikemcgarry , egmat , RonPurewal , DmitryFarber , MagooshExpert , ccooley , VeritasPrepKarishma, mcelroytutoring ,other experts-- please provide your inputs for the given question.

MagooshExpert · Answer

Hi Skywalker18 , E is the correct answer here, as has been explained by several others above. The argument's conclusion is discussing ways to prevent future accidents, using more detailed knowledge of driving conditions. That means the argument is assuming that drivers can be retrained based on this knowledge, which will subsequently decrease the number of accidents. If retraining is going to decrease the number of accidents, then it must be assumed that without the retraining, the drivers would have continued to repeat those errors. Otherwise, after each accident, the driver would not be likely to repeat that same error, and consequently the information collected by the insurance company would have no effect on the number of accidents.

-Carolyn

dave13 · Answer

TIME TAKEN 3 MIN. 11 SEC BUT CHOSE E REFORMULATION INSTEAD OF SHIFTING BLAME FOR CAR ACCIDINTS ON DRIVERS, INSURAMCE COMPANIES SHOULD ANYLIZE FLAWS IN ROAD DESIGN AND OTHER TECHNICAL EXTERNAL FACTORS. THUS ONLY THEN insurance companies be able to effectively issue guidelines to prevent future accidents, instead of merely punishing the incidental driver. (A) Driver error is not a significant factor in most automobile accidents. ( OUT OF SCOPE. it is nowhere mentioned. not even slightest hint is given....0.0000000001 % no hint at all

) (B) Automobile manufacturers should be the agents who investigate automobile accidents and not insurance companies. ( FALSE INFORMATION. IN THE ARGUMENT IT IS STATED THAT INSUARANCE SHOULD ANYLIZE) (C) Stricter government regulation of the automobile and highway construction industries would make automobile travel safer. ( OUT OF SCOPE - NOT MENTIONED. (D) Investigation of automobile accidents should contribute to the prevention of future accidents. ( It is the nature of things that this investigation will contribute to the prevention of futue accident: it is clrealy mentioned in the argument. (E) Most drivers who make errors in driving repeat those errors unless they are retrained. (by POE, THIS IS THIS THE ANSWER AFTER ELIMINATING THE REST ANSWER CHOICES)

THIS9 · Answer

I completely understand why E is an assumption that the argument relies on. However, wouldn't A also be an essential assumption?

if A is not true, i.e.  , then it becomes possible to attribute the occurrence of a car accident to driver error (say, he was distracted) and thus the "ONLY THEN" conclusion of the argument is broken i.e.

Experts kindly tell me what I'm missing.

GMATNinja ,  KarishmaB

Instead of blaming an automobile accident on driver error, insurance c

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Instead of blaming an automobile accident on driver error, insurance c

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