PrepTest 122, Section 4, Question 11
Consumer activist: When antilock brakes were first introduced,(42 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(14 more words not shown)
- ADrivers and passengers(17 more words not shown)
- BUnder some circumstances,(14 more words not shown)
- CFor inexperienced drivers,(11 more words not shown)
- DAntilock brakes are(9 more words not shown)
- EAntilock brakes are(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Fewer pileups sounds good. Why would removing the brakes that helped prevent them save lives?
The answer has to leave room for both claims. Antilock brakes really did reduce multiple-car collisions; the activist still thinks we should stop using them. Perhaps they create a different danger. What if fewer cars collide with one another, but more drivers run off the road? A benefit in one category wouldn't settle the overall effect on safety.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to resolve the apparent conflict. I'd look for some downside that could explain the recommendation despite the reduced collisions. And it needs to be a danger to people, since saving lives is the activist's stated goal. An unrelated disadvantage wouldn't explain this particular recommendation.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This supplies a different danger from the one I guessed: people feel so protected that they're less likely to wear seat belts. A car with better brakes can still crash, and its occupants could be less protected when that happens. So reducing collisions and creating another risk can happen together. That helps explain why the activist might favor removing the brakes to save lives. A doesn't establish the exact number of deaths or prove the policy is best; it supplies the missing reason the two claims needn't conflict.
- B
Sometimes stopping equally quickly doesn't make the antilock brakes dangerous. Traditional brakes could match them in some circumstances while antilock brakes still prevented additional crashes in others. We need a reason removing antilock brakes would improve safety, not merely a situation in which their advantage disappears.
- C
Being easier for inexperienced drivers to use correctly is a reason to keep the antilock brakes. It doesn't explain why taking them away would save lives. This reinforces the favorable side of the picture while leaving the recommendation unexplained.
- D
Cost could matter in deciding which brakes to manufacture. But the activist specifically recommends removing them to save lives. A higher manufacturing cost doesn't explain how doing that would protect people, unless we add another connection that the answer never supplies.
- E
Read the comparison carefully. If antilock brakes are no more effective against multiple-car collisions than against other accidents, their effectiveness against those other accidents is at least as great. We already know they reduced multiple-car collisions. E therefore gives us no new danger that explains why abandoning them would save lives.
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