State X spends more money on highway safety and maintenance

Question

State X spends more money on highway safety and maintenance during the summer months when traffic is heaviest and less during the winter months when traffic is lightest. Therefore, the average number of highway accidents per car should be lower during summer months than during the winter when less money is available for safety and maintenance.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion drawn above?

(A) The price of gas rises during the heaviest traffic season.

(B) Traffic congestion significantly increases the likelihood of accidents resulting from road rage or inattention.

(C) Routine road maintenance projects completed during the summer months make roads and highways safer during rain and snow storms year around.

(D) Insurance companies reduce auto insurance premiums if drivers successfully pass safety training courses.

(E) Highway lane lines are repainted every year in state X resulting in safer nighttime driving conditions year around.

tfincham86 · Answer

Is the OA right?

E seems VERY out of scope.

I would have gone with B

mailnavin1 · Answer

shocked. Pls recheck E is way out of scope

saurabhgoel · Answer

Hi,
In first look, i also pickd B , but after checkign the OA as E, but I think E is correct :

First part of the Arguement implies that in summer maintenance is of high standard than Winter season. 
Conclusion states that, it is because of maintenance which cause the Higher Accidents.

To attack the Conclusion, 'E' states that highway Maintenance(Painting) standard is same through out the year. So, accident rates doesnot depends on the Maintenance......

I think you can get something from my explanation...
but i guess its very tricky ... only after knowing OA as E , above reasoning strikd to me...

skbjunior · Answer

This is a nice question. Initially I went with B. But C makes more sense as it stresses that the maintenance projects completed in summar make highways safer in winter. Choice B only addresses the likelihood of accidents. It may be the case that likelihood of accidents is more but actual number of accidents in summar is smaller than the one in winter. Hence, choice B does not do a good job of weakening the conclusion.

bhandariavi · Answer

The answer should be B.
Are you guys sure about OA?

amit2k9 · Answer

It should be B, where the only assumption is that heavy traffic leads to congestion.
In C,nothing is being said about the summer months,which is the focus of the argument.

B

mourinhogmat1 · Answer

C it is. Even with higher spending in summer, winter may have fewer accidents due to the change in conditions

garimavyas · Answer

'safer' is the word in C , safer compared to what ? safer compared to summer. simple logic

fluke · Answer

Why did you choose B?

Question asks: 
Which of the statement will weaken the conclusion?
It is not talking about the assumption.

Conclusion:
Road accidents should be lower during summer than winters because more money is spent on maintenance during summer.

(C) Routine road maintenance projects completed during the summer months make roads and highways safer during rain and snow storms year around.

This gives us a reason why less money is spent on maintenance during winter. It is not due to lack of funds, as author assumed, but due to the reduced need for repairs during winters, for the maintenance that happens in Summer makes the road good to use throughout the year, including winter and rain.

The road condition is essentially the same in both seasons irrespective of the money spent on repairs during those seasons. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the accidents will increase during winter.

"C" is a convincing weakener.

B, on the other hands, talks nothing about the correlation between summer/winter, road condition or money spent. It instead talks about completely skewed factors that may cause accidents. Such factors as road rage and inattention should be assumed as constant for both seasons.

Ans: "C"

shriramvelamuri · Answer

HI All,

Need some help, please. I am not convinced with the OA, which is C. The clear answer is B.

Please could somebody can help me with the thought process.

supergrad · Answer

i would like to weigh in to explain why B would be incorrect, pay attention to the key word "per car". More congestion = more cars. An extreme case of B might actually strengthen the argument.

Konstantin1983 · Answer

I think C is correct because summer maintenance works make roads safer during fall and winter. Hence this casts doubt on the conclusion. As for B, the argument states that "during the summer months when traffic is heaviest". But we don't know wherher the number of accidents actually increases. Hope it helps

NickHalden · Answer

B) Traffic congestion significantly increases the likelihood of accidents resulting from road rage or inattention. 
The option talks about 'Traffic congestion'. Heavy traffic doesn't necessarily mean congestion. It is quite possible that during winters few but all people drive only at 12:00 noon leading to congestion, whereas in summers the traffic is equally dispersed.
Hence B is incorrect.
C) Is the CORRECT option. 
Investments done in summer reap benefits later.

RahulSingh13 · Answer

It says safer year round, can't you have rains in the summer? B i feel gives a clear indication as to why the accidents would be more in summer than in winters.

douglasvg · Answer

The question here is about the  AVERAGE  number of accidents.
If we choose something that makes reason to spend less money on winter, so we find the right choice:

The money is spend in Road safety and Maintenance.
In Summer it spends in Road Safety and Maintenance. Imagine that the painting in road lanes is about maintenance.
So if we don't have to paint anymore the lanes, we are going to need less money on winter, only for Road Safety.

Therefore the average number of accidents would be equal in summer and in winter.

This was my reasoning why I though that C is the right one.

souvik101990 · Answer

Nicely done  douglasvg

Here is a good one  from an LSAT forum.

AdiUpp1994 · Answer

This is an interesting point as an alternative line of thinking however, I have two main objections to this:
1. Linking Maintenance to Highway safety through causality. Nowhere is there an evidence that better maintenance causes better safety, thus that is a massive assumption (better paint jobs lead to accident prevention? Perhaps, but certainly?) The cause is mentioned as less traffic in winters when compared to in summers.
2. The argument does not talk about average number of accidents but rather average number of accidents   per car  . Thus, even if there are fewer average accidents in winters, fewer number of cars in the road might lead this number per car to be substantially higher than the average number of accidents per car in summers. (2 accidents per 10 cars in winters = 0.2 accidents per car, 15 accidents per 100 cars in summers = 0.15 accidents per car).

Therefore we need something that tells us that this larger traffic is likely to cause a lot more accidents in summer than in winters, to offset the above effect (point 2) which B does to the point.

Posted from my mobile device

saicharansingh · Answer

I narrowed down my options to B and C. But, went ahead with B because C talks about rainy season and not winter season.

Am I missing something?

Posted from my mobile device

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State X spends more money on highway safety and maintenance

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State X spends more money on highway safety and maintenance

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