After the national speed limit of 55 miles per hour was imposed in 1974, the number of deaths per mile driven on a highway fell abruptly as a result. Since then, however, the average speed of vehicles on highways has risen, but the number of deaths per mile driven on a highway has continued to fall.

Neighboring landholders: Air pollution from the giant aluminum refinery that has been built next to our land is killing our plants.

Sales taxes tend to be regressive, affecting poor people more severely than wealthy people. When all purchases of consumer goods are taxed at a fixed percentage of the purchase price, poor people pay a larger proportion of their income in sales taxes than wealthy people do.

Reviewing historical data, medical researchers in California found that counties with the largest number of television sets per capita have had the lowest incidence of a serious brain disease, mosquito-borne encephalitis. The researchers have concluded that people in these counties stay indoors more and thus avoid exposure to the disease.

The city’s public transportation system should be removed from the jurisdiction of the municipal government, which finds it politically impossible either to raise fares or to institute cost-saving reductions in service. If public transportation were handled by a private firm, profits would be vigorously pursued, thereby eliminating the necessity for covering operating costs with government funds.

To entice customers away from competitors, Red Label supermarkets have begun offering discounts on home appliances to customers who spend $50 or more on any shopping trip to Red Label. Red Label executives claim that the discount program has been a huge success, since cash register receipts of $50 or more are up thirty percent since the beginning of the program.

Throughout the 1950’s, there were increases in the numbers of dead birds found in agricultural areas after pesticide sprayings. Pesticide manufacturers claimed that the publicity given to bird deaths stimulated volunteers to look for dead birds, and that the increase in numbers reported was attributable to the increase in the number of people looking.

Teenagers are often priced out of the labor market by the government-mandated minimum-wage level because employers cannot afford to pay that much for extra help. Therefore, if Congress institutes a subminimum wage, a new lower legal wage for teenagers, the teenage unemployment rate, which has been rising since 1960, will no longer increase.

Which of the following best completes the passage below?

This year the New Hampshire Division of Company X set a new record for annual sales by that division. This record is especially surprising since the New Hampshire Division has the smallest potential market and the lowest sales of any of Company X’s divisions.