Happy Halloween! This exciting holiday often involves trick-or-treating for the young ones, and costume parties for adults. Yet Halloween can be a dangerous holiday if parents and children are not careful. The AAA is urging everyone to be safe on Halloween. This is one of the deadliest holidays for pedestrians, as it is one of the only holidays where many small children are running about on the streets. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reports that more child fatalities occur on Halloween due to pedestrian accidents than on any other day of the year. Parents should carefully supervise their children and ensure that they look both ways before they cross the street to go to another home.

According to State Farm, about 70% of all child pedestrian accidents on Halloween happen in the middle of a street that is not near a crosswalk. This is because drivers are less likely to look for pedestrians when driving on a road that does not have a designated crossing path. Many drivers are distracted as they move through residential neighborhoods. While illegal, many drivers will text and drive or talk on the phone, especially when they figure they are in a residential neighborhood where they assume the potential for an accident is low. Unfortunately, this is not true, and an average of 5.5 children die each Halloween after being hit by a car on the road.

Drivers should slow down on Halloween night and drive safely. A pedestrian is twice as likely to be killed if they encounter a car that is travelling at 30 mph as compared to a car travelling at 25 mph. Parents who are allowing their children to trick-or-treat should be costume conscious and choose an outfit with reflective materials that make the child visible out on the street.