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Halloween is the Most Dangerous Night of the Year for Child Pedestrians

Are your children looking forward to Halloween? Many children consider Halloween their favorite night of the year. They can’t wait to put on their costumes and knock on neighbors’ doors. For them, the night is all about fun and candy. A few ghosts and witches only add to the experience.

However, there is a darker side to Halloween that parents need to know about. On Halloween, the number of pedestrian accident deaths involving children is four times that of an average day. Our accident injury attorneys find this statistic to be truly scary.

Several reasons why child pedestrian accidents increase on Halloween night:

• There are more children on the road.
• Whether it is Halloween or not, pedestrian accidents involving children tend to occur during the Trick-or-Treat hours (4 p.m. to 8 p.m.).
• Excited children often forget about safety rules.
• Dark costumes are hard to see.
• Halloween is also a night for adult parties that involve drinking.

How can you keep your child safe?

Here are some trick-or-treat safety tips from Ostroff Godshall Injury and Accident Lawyers.

1. Dress for visibility. Avoid dark costumes and mask that obscure vision. Instead, encourage your child to choose brightly-colored costumes with reflective trim and use glow-in-the dark face paints. Give your child a flashlight, glow stick or light-up accessory to carry.
2. Plan your route in advance. Try to minimize street crossing, especially at unmarked intersections. It is often a good idea to trick or treat down one side of the street and then go to other side.
3. Be careful when crossing streets. Use care when crossing the street. Never assume that a driver sees you and your child. Try to cross at stoplights or stop signs. If there are no marked crossing zones, cross streets at the corner and not in the middle of a block.
4. Stay on the sidewalk. If there are no sidewalks in your neighborhood, your child should walk near the edge of the road facing traffic.
5. Stay with your kids. Your children may feel that they are old enough to go trick-or-treating on their own. However, children under the age of ten do not have the peripheral vision, depth perception and decision-making skills needed to cross streets on their own. Even older children may have difficulty crossing streets at night.
6. Stay alert. Although you are sure to have a mailbox full of Facebook comments admiring your child’s costume, it is best to keep your eyes on your child while trick-or-treating. It only takes a second for a little one to dart across a street or into the path of a car.

The personal injury lawyers at Ostroff Godshall Injury and Accident Lawyers wishes you and your family a safe and happy Halloween!