Why is Halloween dangerous for pedestrians?

Trick-or-treating starts at dusk, masks limit vision, costumes are hard to see, street-crossing safety gets neglected, and some partygoers have been drinking. A JAMA Pediatrics study found pedestrian deaths were 43% more likely on Halloween evening.

What time is most dangerous on Halloween?

Around 6 p.m. The JAMA Pediatrics study of U.S. pedestrian deaths from 1975 through 2016 found the risk was highest at that hour. The study measured from 5 p.m. to midnight on October 31.

What are the trick-or-treat hours for Halloween 2026?

It depends on your town. Halloween 2026 is Saturday, October 31, and some cities set official hours. New Philadelphia, Ohio, set 6 to 8 p.m., and Rochester, Wisconsin, set 1 to 4 p.m. Check your city or village website.

Pedestrian deaths jump 43% on Halloween night, and young kids face the most risk

The risk peaks around 6 p.m. Here's what 42 years of crash data show about Halloween night.

A pedestrian is 43% more likely to be killed on Halloween evening than during the same hours a week earlier or later, according to a study in JAMA Pediatrics. For children ages 4 to 8, the risk was 10 times higher.

The researchers compared U.S. pedestrian deaths between 5 p.m. and midnight on October 31 with the same hours one week before and one week after, using 42 years of data from 1975 through 2016. They counted 608 deaths on the 42 Halloween evenings, compared with 851 on the 84 comparison evenings. That works out to about 4 extra pedestrian deaths on an average Halloween. The risk was highest around 6 p.m.

For the youngest trick-or-treaters, there were 55 deaths on Halloween over those years compared with 11 on the comparison nights, the Associated Press reported.

"That age group is maybe particularly excited about Halloween and maybe in the midst of that excitement loses track of the very real danger that vehicles pose," said Dr. John Staples of the University of British Columbia, the study's lead author.

The actual numbers are still small, and they've been falling. The risk per 100 million Americans dropped from 4.9 to 2.5 between the first and last decades of the study.

The authors pointed to a mix of reasons: the celebrating starts at dusk, masks block side vision, costumes are hard to see, people neglect street-crossing safety, and some partygoers have been drinking.

Drunk drivers are part of it

On Halloween nights from 2019 through 2024, 176 people were killed in crashes involving a driver with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Thirty-one of them were pedestrians. In 2023, nearly half of all crash deaths on Halloween night were alcohol-related.

What helps

For drivers, NHTSA's advice is to slow down and scan the road, because "children may be unaware of traffic and dart into the street unexpectedly." The National Safety Council says to watch for kids in dark clothing at twilight and later, and suggests keeping new, inexperienced drivers off the road that night.

For families, NHTSA says to cross at crosswalks or intersections when possible and look for cars in every direction, including ones turning. The National Safety Council recommends reflective tape on costumes and bags, or glow sticks, for kids out after dark. It also suggests nontoxic face makeup instead of masks, which can block vision.

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and some towns set official trick-or-treat hours. New Philadelphia, Ohio, has set 6 to 8 p.m. on October 31. In Rochester, Wisconsin, where an ordinance sets the time, trick-or-treating runs from 1 to 4 p.m. on Halloween itself instead of the Sunday before, because the holiday lands on a Saturday. Your city or village website is the place to check.

If your town is also holding a Halloween parade, our guide to finding parade routes and road closures explains where to look.