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Keep Halloween Sweet by Keeping Kids Safe
Oct 28 2009 by Jennifer Newman
If the ghosts and goblins don’t frighten you on Halloween, this statistic will: Kids are more than twice as likely to be killed by a car on Halloween as any other night of the year. It’s blood-chilling, isn’t it?
According to Safe Kids USA, an average 2.2 children are killed while walking from 4-10 p.m. on Halloween. That’s prime trick-or-treating hours. During the rest of the year, one child is killed per day in a pedestrian accident during the same time frame; more than 540 kids, ages 14 and younger, are killed each year while walking. The group analyzed pedestrian deaths from 2002-06.
How do you keep your child from becoming a statistic this Halloween?
Tag along: Parents should accompany children, ages 10 and younger, when they’re trick-or-treating, according to Safe Kids USA. I’d argue that you should tag along with your tweens and teens, too. Although they won’t appreciate your presence, it will give you some peace of mind and possibly keep them out of trouble.
Go early: With Halloween falling on a Saturday, there’s no reason that you can’t start trick-or-treating in the late afternoon while the sun is out. If your town has trick-or-treating hours, be sure to head out right at the beginning.
Know the neighborhood: Be sure to stay in areas that you’re familiar with and are well lit.
Skip the masks: Masks make it difficult to see, well, anything (as you can see in the above photo of my trick-or-treater). Use face paint instead.
Add some illumination: If your kid has a dark-colored costume, add reflective tape to the back and sides of it. Or give your child a flashlight or a glow stick to help drivers see them.
No jay-walking: Stick to sidewalks — if your neighborhood has them — and crosswalks.
For more ideas on keeping your kids safe this Halloween, visit Safe Kids USA.
What do you do to ensure your kids are safe on Halloween? Tell us in the comment section below.
User Comments
Another tip is to inspect your children’s loot. Let’s not forget the cyanide taintings of the 1980s.
Great point on the issue of teen drivers, Kelli! I tend to think of Halloween as a young kids event, but I remember driving around with friends as a teen searching for the most loot-a-licious neighborhoods.
If you enjoy scouring your own neighborhood, these tips are spot-on! If the neighborhood is not important, you can take kids to a neighborhood of row houses or townhomes. This way, they are on a pedestrian path and have a higher house-per-stride ratio.
Being a Saturday Halloween this year, another safety issue will be the teen drivers attending house parties that may involve under-age drinking and subsequent driving.