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Doing a simple Google search with the words “Halloween” and “accident” will give you some examples of what happens every year. You will see stories of teenagers or adults getting into car accidents because they got drunk at a party or you will see stories about careless drivers hitting children while they are out trick-or-treating. This is a serious concern. The child pedestrian death rate doubles on Halloween night.

There is one obvious solution to the first problem, which can be summed up in four words: Don’t drink and drive. That’s a piece of advice that should be heeded all year ‘round, and not just on Halloween. The second problem is not as simple to solve, but here are a few general tips to help you avoid adding to the list of victims of pedestrian accidents on Halloween.

The first thing that you should do is be aware of what Halloween is. It’s the one night of the year where small children are allowed out of the house when it’s dark. On any other night of the year you could be forgiven for not expecting to see kids running around the neighborhood at night, but not on Halloween.

With that in mind, you should drive slowly and carefully around any neighborhoods, particularly suburban ones. There is a level of excitement that occurs naturally to children on Halloween, so they often do reckless things like darting across the street, or racing their friends to the next house. They might not be as aware of their surroundings as they normally would be, so you definitely have to be. Halloween costumes are not always brightly colored and easy to see. There was one boy in our neighborhood who dressed up like a ninja, which is a great costume during the day, but an extremely dangerous one at night, especially considering that most of these pedestrian accidents don’t occur at crosswalks. Suburban kids don’t particularly feel the need to go down to the end of the block to cross the street, so what you usually see on Halloween are kids running into the road wearing non-reflective, dark costumes. Or rather you don’t see them, and that’s the problem.

Staying alert and driving a few miles below the speed limit is an absolute necessity on Halloween. It would also be a good idea to avoid distractions. We constantly tell people to never text while driving, and to avoid fiddling with your iPod or iPhone while driving, and that goes double for Halloween. It might seem like you are only taking your eye off the road for an instant, but in that instant you could easily travel 20 yards.

On the other side of this is the responsibility of the parents. Parents should take a few moments to explain to their children how important it is to avoid running out into the street. They should also give their costumes the once-over to make sure that there is some manner of reflective tape somewhere, or at the very least they should have them carry flashlights or glowsticks. But the best preventive method is to accompany your kids as they make the rounds in the neighborhood.

Halloween can be the highlight of a kid’s year. But for an increasing number of them, it can turn out to be the worst. Do what you can to help avoid Halloween pedestrian accidents.

Greenberg and Bederman is an accident law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have lawyers currently offering legal assistance to people in Washington, D.C, Maryland and Virginia who have been injured in car accidents. If you or a loved one has been hurt in an accident due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.