LSAT 37, Logical Reasoning I, Q17

QUESTION TEXT: A safety report indicates that, on average,…

QUESTION TYPE: Paradox – Exception

PARADOX: Seat belt laws lower the rate of traffic accidents. A certain city passed seat belt laws two years ago but has the same number of traffic accidents.

ANALYSIS: All of the wrong answers show how some other factor either increased the number of deaths or caused the statistics to be bumped upwards.

The right answer just tells us a fact about the people who died. We don’t know why they weren’t wearing seat-belts. And it could be only a small minority of people who don’t wear seat-belts, and die.

___________

1. Higher speed limits generally lead to more deaths. 
2. This would increase the number of deaths reported even if the actual number of deaths decreased.
3. More traffic means more potential accidents. The accident rate could be down even as the number of accidents stays the same.
4. A law that nobody pays attention to won’t have much of an impact. 
5. CORRECT. This doesn’t tell us anything. We don’t know why these people disobeyed the law, and why fatalities didn’t decline in the city.

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