Halloween Driving Safety Tips
This Halloween the streets will be crawling with all sorts of witches, superheroes, princesses, and all other kinds of trick or treaters. Halloween makes for added responsibility for drivers to stay alert. The potential for automobile-related accidents with young pedestrians increases four times on this night according to a CDC (Center for Disease Control) study.
Follow These Driving Safety Tips to Help Protect Trick-or-Treaters This Halloween:
1. Slow down and drive slower than the posted speed limit on trick-or-treat night in residential neighborhoods. Stay well below the posted speed limit just in case a little Spiderman or Wonder Women forget to look both ways when they are chased into the street by their villain friends.
2. Be patient and don’t pass stopped vehicles as they may be letting kids out, have stopped for kids crossing the road, or see something you do not see. Yield to pedestrians, watch for children darting into the street. Kids can cross the street anywhere, and most young pedestrian deaths happen at spots other than intersections.
3. Be visible, keep your headlights on even in the daytime, and always use your turn signals. When you are dropping off and picking up your children, pull off the road into a safe spot and use your hazards.
4. Be focused and avoid distractions by waiting until you've stopped to call, text, or get directions. You never know what can happen in the moment you take your eyes off the road and you don’t want to risk finding out. Stay completely focused on your surroundings.
5. Be vigilant and keep an eye out for kids. Broaden your scanning by looking for children right and left, and on front porches and yards. Watch for children walking on medians, curbs, and roads. In dark costumes, they’ll be harder to see at night. Children will cross the street anywhere, and most young pedestrian deaths happen at spots other than intersections.
6. Obey traffic signals and signs, move carefully and slowly and watch for children when you enter and exit alleys and driveways. Come to a complete stop at stop signs and slowly cross at intersections. Many children will have on dark costumes that will make it very hard to see them at night.
SafeKids.org shares that on average, children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car and killed on Halloween than any other day of the year. You can sharpen your driving skills by taking a Defensive Driving Course. See Safe2Drive.com for more information.
Have a Happy Halloween! We hope it’s a fun night, but more importantly, a safe one, too! Visibility and focused driving are the keys for safety during trick-or-treating.