Logical reasoning PrepTest 138 · Section 3 · Question 3

Incorrect. Since the conclusion is that bike lanes don't enhance safety, the argument is overlooking that the bike lanes might decrease the severity of injuries suffered in accidents, not that those injuries are about as serious.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors of Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Roads with bike lanes have more accidents, so bike lanes don't protect riders.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument falls into a very specific pattern on the LSAT—an argument that concludes a given solution doesn't cause a change to the problem it's designed to solve. This type of argument is a specific type of correlation/causation flaw that has specific correct answers.

Here, the correlation is between roads with bike lanes and a high number of accidents. Bike lanes are meant to make riding a bicycle safer, but this argument—based on the correlation—concludes that they don't work.

An argument falling into this pattern is making a crucial flaw—these solutions are usually implemented in places that have a problem that they're trying to solve, and it's likely a bigger problem there than elsewhere. As such, the comparison between the roads with bike lanes and others is a bad one—what's relevant is a comparison of the bike lane roads with the solution in place and without it.

To draw an analogy, think about traffic laws. New York City has some of the most stringent, but it also has a very high number of accidents. It's not that the traffic laws don't work, it's that NYC has a ton of cars! Without the traffic laws, the accident rate would be much higher, even if NYC with the laws has significantly more accidents than a more dispersed city.

Same here—it's possible that the bike lane was put in because of a very high level of cyclists on that road, and thus accidents would be expected to be higher than other roads with less bike traffic. The bike lane might still be preventing a lot of accidents while there still being many that aren't prevented.

Answer Explanation:
(This answer fits into the common pattern for these anti-causal conclusions. If there are more bicyclists on the roads where there are bike lanes, then that's where bike accidents would happen—not on another road without a bike lane but with no bike traffic. As such, the bike lanes might be decreasing accidents, even if there are still a lot that aren't prevented.

Key Takeaway:
When an argument concludes that something doesn't work—usually a safety feature or law—there's a good chance that it's falling into the pattern highlighted here. Saying that something doesn't make people safer because the places that have it have a higher level of accidents ignores that the accident rate might be much higher without that safeguard, and that the solution was likely implemented because there was a problem at a higher rate in that location.

Incorrect. The scope of the conclusion is the safety of bicyclists, so this answer is out of scope in bringing up the safety of motorists.

Incorrect. The stimulus doesn't bring up any roads with bike lanes that are safe, so this answer doesn't properly characterize the argument.

Incorrect. This answer describes an absence of evidence flaw, but there's no opposing point that the author points out a flaw in. The statistical evidence is directly related to her conclusion.