Many small roads do not have painted markings along their edges. Clear

Stimulus:

Clear markings on narrow road are expected to make driving safer particularly when visibility is poor.
When Greatwater County painted edges of narrow roads, the accident rate on those roads increased slightly.

This is what we call 'Explain the Paradox' question. You were expecting the accident rate to go down but it actually went up! We have to look for the option that will help explain this paradox.
1. That might explain why its accident rate is higher than that of other counties. It doesn't explain why its accident rate is higher than its own previous accident rate. It had the same narrow winding roads before, it has the same roads now.
2. In bad weather, it can be nearly as hard to see the road as at night. But the case was the same before the roads were painted. After the roads were painted, it should have been easier for the drivers to drive at night and also in bad weather. The accident rate should have dropped then. It doesn't explain why it increased after the roads were painted. (If the option had an additional statement saying 'There have been unusually high number of bad weather days recently (after the paint job)' or something like it, we might have given it more thought.
3. The comparison is not between accident rate of narrow roads and other roads but between the accident rate of narrow roads before the paint job and narrow roads after the paint job.
4. Again, doesn't explain the difference in accident rate before the paint job and after the paint job.
5. After the markings, drivers felt safer and drove on those roads at night too. If before the markings, let's say the accident rate was 2% and 100 people used to drive at night on those roads in a month, after the markings, the accident rate might have fallen to 1%, but 500 people started driving at night on those roads in a month. So there would be 5 accidents as compared to 2 of before. Therefore, we might have seen an increase in the accident rate. This explains the paradox.
(I just assumed the numbers I took above to give clarity)
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It was anticipated that the paint along the edge of the road would make it easier for people to notice a curve coming ahead. However, after the paint along the edge of the road was applied, even more accidents occurred than before. Thus the answer must explain the contradiction.

E explains this contradiction in the expectation. Because of the winding roads, some people avoided driving when there was low visibility. However, after the paint was applied along the edge of the road, more people began driving on these windy roads even though visibility was low. As a result, more drivers on the road can help to explain the increase in the accident rate.

Responding to a pm:

You have to explain the following:
Road markings led to an increase in road accidents.

You expect road markings to lead to a decrease in number of accidents. But they actually increased a little. How do you explain that? It is something similar to the situation that cars with ABS and airbags get involved in more accidents than cars without these features. How do you explain that? You expect these features to make the cars safer. It is because drivers of cars with ABS and air bags become careless. They know they will be protected in case of an accident. Hence more accidents occur.
So how do you explain the increase in the number of accidents when clear road markings were made? It is because people became careless and started driving at night too. Night driving is riskier than day driving on winding roads and hence the the number of accidents could have increased.
Bad weather has no connection with road markings. Road markings would not lead to more bad weather days and hence cause more accidents. Bad weather would have been there before the road markings and after the road markings. We are not given that the bad weather days increased after the road markings. Don't let other options drag you into out-of-scope territory.
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Many small roads do not have painted markings on their edges...

Kindly explain!

in the 5th answer choice, what did author mean by "did so" ?

Point E says that drivers who would previously have avoided driving at times of poor weather were now "driving at times of poor weather".

The bold green part is what the author means by did so.

Kudos Please... If my post helped.

Clearly,

The drivers who used to drive on those roads(when painting was not done) started using those roads more (after painting was done), i.e, overused those roads after painting was done/More drivers used those roads.

Kudos if meaningful!

Best,
...

But tell me one thing :

As per (E) there are more drivers on the road now .... fine ... But at the same time the markings on the road should also reduce the accidents also right ?


Say before there were 1000 cars on the road and the accident rate was 20%, i.e. No of accidents = 200

Now after yellow markings the accident rate = 5% and number of cars on road is 2000

Hence now no. of accidents = 5% of 2000 = 100
So we see that the no. of accidents have decreased...


Then how can (e) help explain the increase of accident rate ?

Hi practicegmat.

The argument says: "the annual accident rate along these roads actually increased slightly"

It means:
Before having painted markings: the accident rate is 5% (assume)
After having painted marking: the accident rate increased slightly, assume 5.5%

There is NOT a situation like your example (accident rate decreased).

==> KEY fact is: the accident rate increased, for example, from 5% to 5.5%. ==> It means the number of accidents also increased. Your task is to find an explanation for that. Do not question the facts because they are true.
==> Only E can help.

KEY of "resolve the paradox" is that you must assume Facts are always true, your task is just explain why there is a paradox.

Hope it's clear.

Hello PracticeGmat,

Here is my reasoning for the above question:

First of all, what is the paradox?

The paradox is that despite warning signs the accident rate increased slightly, the expectation was that the accidents should decrease or somewhat remain equal. Now, our task is to find an answer choice that explains that how can above situation happen?

Now, E says that the number of vehicles increased by greater than 50%(this is equivalent to Many). If this is true than the number of vehicles earlier lets sat 1000 is now increased to 1500, and the accident rate lest say 20 % is increased to 22% (as question says it increased slightly) - clearly you can see that the sign boards does help in reducing the accidents, since number of vehicles is increased by 50 %, and you would expect that the accident rate to go up significantly high, however currently it is not the case.
Makes sense.

Thanks

Hi GMATNinja,

The question stem and answer choices need to be posted for this question. Can you edit and paste the same

Many small roads do not have painted markings along their edges. Clear edge markings would make it easier for drivers to see upcoming curves and to judge the car's position on the road, particularly when visibility is poor, and would therefore seem to be a useful contribution to road safety. However, after Greatwater County painted edge markings on all its narrow, winding roads the annual accident rate along these roads actually increased slightly.

Which of the following if true, most helps to explain the increase in accident rate?

A. Greatwater County has an unusually high proportion of narrow, winding roads.
B. In bad weather it can be nearly as difficult for drivers to see the road as it is at night.
C. Prior to the painting of edge markings, Greatwater County's narrow, winding roads already had a somewhat higher accident rate than other Greatwater County roads.
D. Many of the accidents on narrow, winding roads involve a single vehicle veering off the road, rather than the collision of two vehicles.
E. After the markings were painted on the roads, many drivers who had gone out of their way to avoid driving on those roads at night no longer did so
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Done. Thank you.
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The statement says 'the annual accident rate increased slightly'. So I don't understand why you decrease it from 2% to 1%. Taking your numbers:
The accident rate was 2% and 100 people, after the markings it was 3% and 500 people. The number of accidents goes from 2 to 15 after the markings.

Does this explain the paradox? Or I'm doing something wrong? Can this paradox be explained in these two ways, decreasing and increasing the %?

Hi KarishmaB, I found a part of your explanation incorrect.
The prompt says that the accident RATE increased, not necessarily the number of accidents.
However, in your explanation, you have reduced the rate and increased the account.

Though even I marked E as correct with the logic that there was an increase in the number of drivers on the mentioned road, hence may have led to increase in the % of accidents.