Logical Reasoning

PT143 · S1 · Q6 Sport utility vehicles (SUVs)

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Sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are, because of their weight, extremely expensive to operate but, for the same reason, in an accident they are safer for their occupants than smaller vehicles are.

Given that ...

SUV's are heavy, so in an accident they are safer for their occupants than those of smaller vehicles.

How can it be that ...

Auto safety experts look at traffic fatality stats and say the increasing popularity of SUVs is an alarming trend?

Evaluate / Goal

We need a way of saying that even though the occupants of SUV's are safer than if they were in a smaller car, it's still a bad thing for safety that SUVs are getting more popular.

Maybe there are safety risks from SUV's that apply to people who aren't occupants of the SUV.

Maybe there are safety risks from SUV's that apply to occupants of the SUV, but not when they're in an accident (like maybe SUV's are more likely to let carbon monoxide into the cabin, which can cause lung cancer over time).

We need to find something relating to increased use of SUVs that would connect to a safety risk.

6.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to account for the response of auto safety experts to the popularity of SUVs?

  1. Vehicles with a reputation for

    Opposite of Goal

    Since SUVs could presumably have a reputation for being safer than other vehicles, this answer tells us that SUVs tend to be driven more carefully than other vehicles. This would be a great answer if it said more recklessly or much less carefully.

    3% picked this

  2. Vehicles with a high average

    Out of Scope: high fuel consumption

    Even though it's tempting to use outside knowledge to assume that SUVs are vehicles with a high average fuel consumption, it's too far off the page from anything we've been told. LSAC wouldn't expect us to use outside knowledge that isn't of a general common sense variety. If we were tempted by this answer, we were probably hoping to say, "the safety risk of an SUV is that with a bigger fuel tank, the chance of a huge explosion, in the event of an accident, is more likely". That storyline would actually go against the background fact, which is that occupants in an SUV are safer in an accident than were they in a smaller car. So whatever risk that bigger fuel tank might present, it is clearly outweighed by other advantages SUVs have, because it's a fact that an SUV's occupants are safe in an accident than a smaller vehicle's occupants are.

    0% picked this

  3. Recent statistics suggest that large

    No Impact

    Carrying more passengers doesn't have a common sense link to "big safety risk". Yes, an accident with more people involved has a greater chance of injury because there are more bodies to be injured, but we wouldn't blame the vehicle for that increased safety risk. Imagine that 6 people need to get to a concert. Would these safety experts prefer three smaller cars with 2 people in each, or one SUV with 6 people in it? Presumably, the SUV is the safer option. There are fewer cars on the road (less chance of an accident) and the occupants of an SUV would be safer than the occupants of smaller cars, were any of them to get into an accident.

    9% picked this

  4. Correct

    Recent statistics suggest that the

    Why this is right

    This allows us to connect a safety risk to the increased use of SUVs. When my Prius hits your large Escalade, you're well protected, but I'm going to get smashed by your Escalade. Meanwhile, if a Prius had hit another Prius, we would have just crumpled up a little bit (and maybe a rainbow would have even been emitted). So the auto safety experts aren't alarmed by increased use of SUVs for the sake of their occupants, who are safer; they're worried about the fact that all the other people on road in smaller, regular cars have a higher chance of dying, if there are all these heavy tanks hitting us at 70mph. We might ask ourselves, "Why is this a problem we blame on SUVs? Couldn't the solution just be that everyone buys SUVs? Then we're all protected?" It's not a plausible solution, given that the passage told us that they are "extremely expensive to operate". So we take it as a given that most of us can't afford to drive an SUV. Thus the increasing number of people who are driving them are increasing the safety risk of getting into an accident for the rest of us.

    Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    79% picked this

  5. Recent statistics suggest that SUVs

    No Impact

    If this answer had said that SUVs are much more likely to be involved in collisions, that could have helped us. We could have said, "Sure the occupants are safer, in an accident, by being in an SUV. But ... they're getting into many more accidents, so their overall safety risk may still be elevated." But since this equalizes risk of being involved in a collision it has no impact or even deepens the paradox.

    8% picked this

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