Q6 - SUVS are because of their weight

[sh854]

Hi all,

I am having trouble with this explain a discrepancy question. Here is how I broke it down.

Statement: In an accident SUVs are safer for their occupants than smaller vehicles are
Disrupting point: Increasing popularity of SUVs is an alarming trend.

The LSAT wants us to answer why the increasing popularity of SUVs is an alarming trend if they are safer than small vehicles.

I think C answers this question. It is alarming because SUVs hold more people which mean that there is a higher risk that people will be in an accident.

Why is C not the right answer?

[ohthatpatrick]

Great synopsis of the stimulus and our goal.

(C) isn't terrible to me. If we thought of injuries sustained in accidents as having a value of 1 to 100 injury points, I can see how an SUV accident carrying 6 people (who each sustain 50 injury points, 300 total) would be worse than a car carrying 4 people (who each sustain 70 injury points, 280 total).

But ... that's some crazy specific, speculative math.

It's very possible that all the many riders in the SUV sustain almost NO injury!

So in that sense, having more passengers isn't a concern, because they're all insulated inside the tank.

But meanwhile, that tank just drove over a Volkswagen Bug.

(D) alludes to this possibility. More importantly, it contains more direct language about something "alarming" than (C) does. We have to add an idea (or more) to make (C) into something alarming.

(D) is good enough, as is, to suggest that SUV's are alarming, since having them involved in a collision with a smaller vehicle results in more fatalities than smaller vehicles colliding with each other.

To preempt anyone who wants to make the following argument:
It's possible that if we had near saturation with EVERYONE driving SUV's that the SUV-on-SUV collision fatality rate would be lower than that of SUV-on-smaller or smaller-on-smaller. In that case, we'd want everyone to have SUV's, from a safety perspective.

But they sort of boxed out that idea by telling us that SUVs are 'extremely expensive' to operate. So it's pretty offensive to common sense to argue that (D) shouldn't alarm us, because we could just ALL go out and buy SUVs in order to minimize the uptick in fatalities.

==== other answers ====

(A) This WORSENS the paradox. SUV's would have the rep of being safer and thus be more safely driven. Not alarming.

(B) Fuel tank capacity is not directly alarming enough. (you'd have to add ideas such as "greater hazard of catching on fire and causing enormous explosions" to make this sound alarming)

(E) This mildly worsens the paradox. We might have said that SUV's are alarming because "even though you're safer in an accident than you would be in a smaller car, you're much more likely to get INTO an accident in the first place." But (E) says there's equal risk of colliding, whether you're driving SUV or smaller, which actually strengthens the idea that SUV's are safer, given our previous information.

Hope this helps.

[LolaC289]

This plays an interesting point: the improved safety to the SUV's occupants DOES NOT equal to improved safety overall !

It's true that the premise told us, when being hit, SUV occupants are in safe positions.

But what about the cars being hit by the SUVs? How are things go with those poor little passengers?

(D) takes on that.

(C) could also do the job, if (D) is not here. It could be that even though SUVs are safer, but the extra passengers they carry may adds up to counteract that effect.

But the premise seems to be specifically saying: in accidents, SUVs are safer for their occupants. Even if they carry more passengers, they are still safer. If those passengers are people who are using any cars anyway, using SUVs can still protect them better.

So (C) may weaken or strengthen the expert's conclusion, depending on interpretation.