Answer: AThe correct answer is (A) The number of serious automobile accidents involving children under age four has remained steady over the past five years.
Explanation:The argument claims that safety seats have caused a reduction in child fatalities. To strengthen this argument, we need evidence that eliminates alternative explanations for the 30% decrease in fatalities. Option A does exactly this by showing that accident rates remained constant while fatalities decreased. This strongly suggests that the safety seats (rather than fewer accidents) are responsible for saving lives.
Why each other option is incorrect:(B) This actually weakens the argument by providing an alternative explanation for the decrease in fatalities - if there were fewer accidents involving children overall, this could explain the reduced fatalities without attributing the improvement to safety seats.
(C) This weakens the argument by introducing another possible explanation for the decrease in fatalities (air bags rather than safety seats). It creates doubt about whether safety seats deserve credit for the improvement.
(D) This information about where fatal accidents typically occur doesn't help establish whether safety seats are effective. It neither strengthens nor significantly weakens the argument about the causal relationship between safety seats and reduced fatalities.
(E) An increase in teenage drivers doesn't strengthen the connection between safety seats and reduced child fatalities. This information is irrelevant to evaluating whether safety seats specifically caused the reported decrease in fatalities.