It’s almost time for the kids to dress up again for their yearly trek house-to-house during Halloween. Excited children pose risks to any driver heading out onto the roadways. The kids won’t always look both ways before crossing the street, and rarely do they cross at the corner in the crosswalks as it is. As drivers, there are a few things to do to reduce the risk of injury or death to our trick-or-treaters.

One of the best advice is to avoid driving that evening altogether. If your vehicle is parked safely for the evening, you can reduce the potential risk of injury to these kids. However, if you must drive, you’ll need to adjust your regular driving techniques.

Most trick-or-treaters will be in residential areas, so you’ll need to reduce your speed more than the speed you would normally use in those areas. It’s often common practice to drive around 40 km/h in residential areas, but for this night, you may want to reduce your speed to roughly 25 – 30 km/h. The reduced speed can reduce your response time if one of the kids suddenly darts out in front of you from between parked vehicles.

To give yourself a better chance to respond to darting kids, make a glance underneath vehicles you’re approaching the vehicles to look for the feet of pedestrians that may walk in front of you. From a distance, you may be able to see if someone is standing in front of a larger vehicle, especially if you can’t see through the windows of the vehicle. It works well in daylight hours but should also be used after dark when the kids are making their rounds.

To help you spot the kids sooner, keep moving your eyes from building to building to help you spot them well before they reach the roadway. The sooner you spot the trick-or-treaters, the sooner you can reduce speed or tap the horn to warn them. Remember a couple of honks even if the kids are excited.

If you must go out during Halloween night, and since the sidewalks will be full of kids, position your vehicle in the driveway to allow you to avoid backing. Backing into your driveway will give you better visibility when leaving at any time of the year, including at night. The blind area behind the vehicle is much larger than the blind area in the front, so entering the roadway facing forward will give you a better view of those excited kids who may be running across your intended path without paying much attention to you.

As a community, you still have a responsibility to ensure those who go out this Halloween can do it safely, whether you plan to go out or not.