Tainted candy won’t hurt your kids on Halloween. Cars will. - Vox.com

As is the custom, millions of children successful the United States volition beryllium retired successful the streets this Halloween to trick-or-treat, decked retired successful costumes. Also arsenic is custom, adults volition fret astir the mostly mythical dangers children whitethorn face. Once upon a clip it was razor blades successful apples; this year, it’s rainbow fentanyl successful candy. But portion fears of children receiving narcotic-spiked treats are unfounded, determination is simply a precise existent information that America’s children look connected this astir hallowed of evenings: cars.

That’s due to the fact that pedestrians nether the property of 18 are three times much likely to beryllium struck and killed by a car connected Halloween than immoderate different time of the year. That hazard grows to 10 times much apt for children aged 4 to 8 years old, according to a survey from 2019 successful JAMA Pediatrics.

Halloween is the deadliest time of the twelvemonth for kid pedestrians. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

“You’re going to person accrued numbers of children, including younger children who are retired connected the streets,” said Lois Lee, a prof of pediatrics and exigency medicine astatine Harvard Medical School. “At the aforesaid time, you person adults who are driving, and particularly this twelvemonth connected a Monday, radical volition beryllium driving location from work. If children are successful costume, they whitethorn beryllium wearing darker covering … which makes them harder to detect.”

The JAMA Pediatrics study from 2019 corroborates this, noting that Halloween “may heighten pedestrian postulation risk, due to the fact that celebrations hap astatine dusk, masks restrict peripheral vision, costumes bounds visibility, street-crossing information is neglected, and immoderate partygoers are impaired by alcohol.” It’s the benignant of lethal operation that tin crook a amusive juncture into a deadly nightmare. Adult victims included, the hazard of decease to each pedestrians was 43 percent higher connected Halloween compared to a regular evening.

But what happens connected Halloween isn’t an isolated incident. After weapon injuries, centrifugal conveyance injuries are the second starring origin of death among children successful the US overall. And with pedestrian fatalities (both big and child) astatine a 40-year high successful the US, it’s worthy asking wherefore children roaming the streets is truthful inherently deadly, and what tin beryllium done astir it.

“Sometimes erstwhile you speech astir this issue, you get pushback from radical and radical say, ‘Well, of course, you person much children connected the streets, of course, much children are going to die,’” Doug Gordon, a writer and podcast host who advocates for safer streets and cities, told me. “But that accepts a baseline level of information that I deliberation we arsenic a nine person successful information accepted connected the different 364 days of the year.”

There are broader reasons for wherefore streets person gotten adjacent much unsafe for pedestrians recently. One is that drivers are distracted — not conscionable by their phones, but progressively by the infotainment systems that travel arsenic a portion of newer cars. A much pressing contented is the expanding size of cars successful the US; SUVs marque up half of each car sales successful the US, and are much much apt to termination pedestrians successful crashes than smaller vehicles. “Mass times velocity is force,” Gordon summed up. “When you summation the wide of something, you’re going to summation the unit astatine which it interacts with a tiny susceptible child.”

Trick-or-treaters transverse the thoroughfare arsenic they locomotion from location to location successful Portland, Maine, connected Halloween 2019. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

But the biggest crushed whitethorn beryllium that American streets and cities are designed for cars, and not people. As Charles Marohn — laminitis and president of Strong Towns and an adept connected municipality readying and civilian engineering — has argued, engineers who plan streets prioritize getting cars arsenic quickly from constituent A to constituent B implicit everything else. One recent example: A postulation information committee successful Utah could not find immoderate mode to marque the five-lane roadworthy crossing to a schoolhouse safer for students speech from conscionable removing the crosswalk altogether.

But determination is simply a batch that tin beryllium done to marque streets safer, for aboriginal Halloweens and each different time of the year. In the abbreviated term, cities and towns tin physique connected open streets programs implemented aft the Covid-19 pandemic began, which impact closing definite streets to car postulation to let for much nationalist space. Notably, New York City announced a “Trick oregon Streets” plan that would spot 100 car-free zones successful effect from 4 to 8 p.m. connected Halloween this year. And the Big Apple isn’t alone, arsenic Henry Grabar reported for Slate: little dense and much car-dependent cities similar St. Petersburg, Florida and Seattle volition besides either close disconnected the metropolis center for Halloween oregon really let residents to use for permits that tin close disconnected their neighborhoods to car traffic.

In the agelong run, Gordon believes that places astir the US should beryllium capable to walk what is known arsenic the popsicle test, wherever a kid should beryllium capable to safely locomotion to a store, bargain a popsicle, and instrumentality location earlier it melts. In essence, each metropolis should beryllium designed to beryllium affable and traversable to the astir susceptible successful our communities. “If you commencement reasoning on those lines, past I deliberation you commencement reasoning on the lines of what infrastructure is needed to marque that possible, wherever I would consciousness comfy letting my kid bash that,” Gordon said. “Halloween is similar a elephantine mentation of the popsicle trial due to the fact that it’s not conscionable your kid, it’s each kid successful the neighborhood.”

Designing safer streets for children goes beyond information — it would marque for a amended Halloween. “Having sidewalks and bully lighting is simply a bully preventive measure, not conscionable for wounded prevention, but besides conscionable wide health,” Lee told me, “because that encourages everybody successful the vicinity to walk, exercise, and get outside, which is amended for everybody’s wellness arsenic well.”

And if their information isn’t capable motivation, designing dense, walkable cities could adjacent pb to bigger candy hauls for kids.

“When you physique a metropolis that’s safer, truthful that kids tin locomotion astir by themselves and not beryllium disquieted astir getting deed by a car, oregon the parents being disquieted astir them being deed by a car, it’s conscionable better,” Gordon said. “It’s awesome. They’re independent. It’s fun. And connected Halloween, they get a batch of candy.”