Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay
Advanced Composition
15 November 2007

I believe that stop signs in Hot Springs are a waste of taxpayers’ money. There is no point in having stop signs in a town of 300 people. I believe that if people really need stop signs in Hot Springs to direct them then maybe they shouldn't be driving at all. When I am behind someone who stops at a stop sign when no one is coming, it just takes up more of my time. In that time a lot can happen. For instance some one could come after the first driver decide to go resulting in the person in back, in this instance me, to actually have to stop and wait even longer, wasting even more time.

But you might say that stop signs prevent deaths by allowing people to be more cautious of other drivers. Stop signs save lives. Nobody dies because they stop for a stop sign.

This is wrong for several different reasons. One of these is there may actually be an emergency, lets just say for instance a man is taking his pregnant wife to the hospital because she is in labor and the guy in front of him an older fellow decides that he must stop at the stop sign, where he would have otherwise went and then he saw a car coming down the street about a block away and he misjudges the speed at which the car was traveling in his old age, and doesn't go.

A minute passes. The older driver goes. No harm done right? Wrong, the young couple makes it to the hospital and the child is lost, and the doctors say that if they had been there a minute sooner they would have been able to save the child.

Who is to be blamed for this tragedy? The old man? No the stop sign, because the old man would have gone if it hadn't been for the stop sing and he would have seen the car but knew that he could make it across the intersection and they young couple would have been the proud parents of a young baby boy/girl.

Another example of harm coming as a result of stop signs in a small town as Hot Springs would be an increase in road rage. People would be more aggravated as a result of having to stop for stop signs when nobody is coming. This is my new policy that I propose for people to follow in Hot Springs: No cop, no stop! They are just wasting everybody’s money and time that can be directed at more beneficial projects like finding a cure for cancer or AIDS.