Julia Carle, Chapter 2, Question 6

One passage of the chapter that really stuck out to me was when Wheelan was explaining "perverse incentives" and gave an example about boarding commercial airlines and driving cars with young children aboard. I learned that a "perverse incentive" is an incentive to get people to do something, but it totally results in the opposite way they wanted it to. This idea of "perverse incentive" and the example Wheelan gave readers really stuck out to me because then I started thinking about other examples in the world that had gotten a "perverse incentive". Wheelan was talking about how during the Clinton administration, an administrator tried to require car seats for children on planes. It sounded like a good idea to me, because then the children would be safer. But Wheelan went on to say that it could do the opposite effect and make children less safe, due to the fact that a car seat on a plane forces the family to buy an extra seat. Because the family would have to pay for the equivalent of an extra seat for the car seat, many families would opt to the cheaper alternative and just drive to their destination. By doing this, it endangers the children much more. Driving a car is much more dangerous than flying on an airplane, therefore having more families driving versus flying could result in a deadly result. It stood out to me most because it changed my mind about the issue. At first I was like, "yeah, let's get car seats in planes" but as Wheelan spoke more of the problems this would result in, I began to reconsider.