Motorcoach driver: Professional drivers spend much more time driving, on average, than do other people and hence are more competent drivers than are other, less experienced drivers. Therefore, the speed limit on major highways should not be reduced, because that action would have the undesirable effect of forcing some people who are now both law-abiding and competent drivers to break the law.
Police officer: All drivers can drive within the legal speed limit if they wish, so it is not true to say that reducing the speed limit would be the cause of such illegal behavior.
Speaker 1 Summary
The motorcoach driver claims that we shouldn’t reduce highway speed limits. Why not? Because doing so would “force” some competent drivers to break the law, presumably by speeding. Who would these drivers be? We can infer the motorcoach driver is talking about professional drivers, who are better-than-average drivers because they spend more time driving. (The assumption is that the professionals wouldn’t reduce their speed to respect a new limit.)
Speaker 2 Summary
The police officer argues that lowering the speed limit would not actually be the cause of people speeding. This is because anyone can drive at the limit if they choose to—so the drivers’ choices, not the limit, would be to blame for speeding.
Objective
We need to find a point of disagreement. The driver and the officer disagree about whether lowering the speed limit would cause any drivers to speed.
A
it would be desirable to reduce the speed limit on major highways
The motorcoach driver disagrees with this, but the police officer doesn’t state an opinion. The police officer never mentions whether or not we should change the speed limit.
B
professional drivers will drive within the legal speed limit if that limit is reduced
The motorcoach driver disagrees with this, but the police officer neither agrees nor disagrees. The police officer doesn’t say whether professional drivers actually will speed; the point is just that if they did so it would be their own fault.
C
reducing the speed limit on major highways would cause some professional drivers to break the law
The motorcoach driver agrees with this, but the police officer disagrees, so this is the point at issue. The police officer claims that the cause of speeding would not be the lower limit, but would instead be that the drivers chose to speed.
D
professional drivers are more competent drivers than are other, less experienced drivers
The motorcoach driver agrees with this, but the police officer doesn’t state an opinion. The police officer doesn’t say anything at all about the competency of professional versus non-professional drivers.
E
all drivers wish to drive within the speed limit
Neither speaker states an opinion about this claim. Neither the motorcoach driver nor the police officer makes any kind of statement about what drivers actually wish to do.