20 Halloween road safety tips for drivers and pedestrians: Consumer Reports

Halloween compresses two of the riskiest conditions on U.S. roads into a few hours: a sudden surge of foot traffic and fading light. Costumed children crowd sidewalks, driveways, and curbs just as evening commuters head home. The kids doing the walking are also the least equipped to judge how fast a car is moving or how much room it needs to stop. That combination has long made Halloween one of the year's deadliest nights for people on foot, with children bearing a large share of the risk.

The underlying numbers explain why. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration counted 7,080 pedestrian fatalities in 2024, plus upward of 71,000 injuries, part of a 10-year rise the agency has tracked. Darkness accounts for much of that toll. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety puts roughly half of all traffic deaths in the dark or in the low light around dawn and dusk. Matthew Brumbelow, a principal research engineer at IIHS, has said the risk of driving at night runs about three times higher than in daylight. Halloween drops thousands of small, distracted pedestrians into exactly those hours.

None of that makes the holiday inherently unsafe. Most of the danger traces back to a short list of fixable choices on both sides of the curb. When trick-or-treating starts, how a costume is built, whether a young child has an adult alongside, how much attention a driver pays on a residential block — each of those is a decision, not bad luck. The guidance below draws on recommendations from NHTSA and Consumer Reports. It splits into two halves: Halloween road safety tips for trick-or-treaters and their parents, then tips for anyone behind the wheel that evening.

Each item targets a documented risk factor rather than a general warning to be careful. Treat it as a checklist for the full night — whether you are walking a group of kids through the neighborhood, driving them between houses, handing out candy at the door, or heading home as the streetlights come on.

Illustration: Quartz

A parent or responsible adult should accompany any child younger than 12 on Halloween night. That benchmark comes from NHTSA, and it reflects a real limit in how young children process traffic: they struggle to judge how fast a car is moving and how much room it needs to stop.

The gap between what a child sees and what a child understands is the whole problem. A six-year-old can spot a car coming down the block but cannot reliably work out whether it will reach the crosswalk first. Halloween loads more onto that weak point — a costume to manage, friends to keep up with, a porch light two houses ahead, and a candy bag to guard.

An adult alongside covers the moments when that judgment fails. Stepping off a curb. Crossing the mouth of a driveway. Threading past a van parked tight against the sidewalk. Those are the seconds when a hand on a shoulder does more than a reminder given 20 minutes earlier at the front door.

Age 12 works as a general line, not a hard one. Some nine-year-olds stop at every curb without being told. Some 13-year-olds quit paying attention the moment they join a group of friends. The practical test is whether the child stops, checks both directions, and waits without prompting, every time.

Group outings cover the older end of that range reasonably well. One adult can shepherd a cluster of eight- to 11-year-olds, calling out approaching cars and keeping the group from spreading across the road — none of which happens when children head out on their own.

Teenagers going without an adult still need the habits spelled out before they leave: stay together, cross where drivers can see you, and treat no car as having noticed you until it has clearly stopped.

Illustration: Quartz

A child who walks between houses gives a driver far more time to react than one who sprints. Running turns a routine trip across a driveway into a sudden appearance in a travel lane, which is worth saying out loud before kids leave the first porch.

Momentum is the mechanical problem. A child at a full run needs several steps to stop, and those steps often carry past the curb line they meant to halt at. Add a cape, a trailing robe, or a pair of platform boots and a hard stop becomes a stumble, sometimes into the gutter or the road.

The pressure to run is built into the night. Friends race each other to the next doorbell, the candy supply feels finite, and younger siblings strain to keep up with older ones. A parent who sets a walking pace at the first house, and holds it rather than sending kids ahead to ring bells alone, sets the rhythm for the evening.

Pace also changes what a child can do at the edge of a property. At walking speed, a trick-or-treater arrives at the end of a driveway with a moment to spare and a chance to scan for a reversing car. At a sprint, that moment disappears, and so does the driver's chance to stop.

Darkness compounds the problem, because headlights reach only so far down an unlit residential street. A costumed figure moving at walking speed stays inside that lit zone long enough for a driver to see and react. A running child can cross the beam in a stride or two.

The reminder matters more as the night goes on, not less. Excitement builds, groups spread out, and kids who started the evening holding a hand are three houses ahead by 8 p.m. Repeating the instruction every few stops keeps it attached to the behavior it is meant to govern.

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Keeping kids on the sidewalk removes two hazards at once: the blind spot created by parked cars and the tripping hazards scattered across dark lawns.

A sidewalk puts pedestrians where drivers already expect them to be. A child who steps into the roadway through the gap between two parked vehicles gives an approaching driver almost no warning, because nothing reveals the child until they are already in the travel lane. In the dark, with a costume absorbing rather than reflecting light, that margin shrinks further. Vans, pickups, and SUVs lining a street during peak trick-or-treating hours make the problem worse, since taller vehicles block more of the view in both directions.

Yards carry a different set of problems. Halloween displays bring extension cords, lawn stakes, inflatable anchors, and decorative fencing into spaces that are otherwise clear, and hoses, edging, sprinkler heads, and sloped ground are hard to read at night. A fall on grass is usually harmless. A fall that ends at the curb, in a driveway, or in the street is not.

Shortcuts are the usual reason children leave the sidewalk — cutting across a lawn to reach the next lit porch, or angling diagonally toward a house partway down the block. Setting the expectation that the group travels along the sidewalk keeps the route predictable for everyone, including drivers.

Plenty of neighborhoods have no sidewalk at all. Where that is the case, the standard rule applies: walk on the left side of the road, facing oncoming traffic, as far from the travel lane as the shoulder allows, and move single file rather than spreading across the pavement. Facing traffic lets a walker see an approaching car and step aside, which is not possible with their back to it.

Costume length feeds directly into this. Capes, robes, and long skirts that drag on the ground catch on cracked pavement, shrubs, and yard decorations. Hemming or pinning anything that trails below the ankle before leaving the house cuts the odds of a stumble, whatever surface a child ends up walking on.

Illustration: Quartz

A driveway deserves the same stop-and-look check as a street crossing, every single time. Trick-or-treaters pass dozens of them in one evening, and a car easing out of one can reach the sidewalk before a child registers that it is moving at all. The gap between two houses reads as harmless, which is why kids walk straight through it without slowing down.

A driver leaving a driveway is also looking for the wrong thing. The head turns toward the street, the eyes hunt for a gap in passing traffic, and a child approaching along the sidewalk enters that picture late and from the side. Mirrors do not help much with a figure that is three feet tall and standing close to the bumper.

Timing stacks on top of that. Much of the evening's door-to-door walking happens in the hour or two after sunset, when a small figure in a cape sits against a dark hedge or a shadowed porch. A driver who would pick out an adult crossing the same strip of concrete may not see the child until the car is already rolling.

The habit worth drilling is verbal and repeatable: stop at the edge of the pavement, look left, look right, check for white reverse lights, and cross only when nothing in the driveway is moving. Saying it out loud at the first few houses sets the rhythm before candy and group energy take over. Driveway checks are the first thing children drop, because a driveway feels like part of the sidewalk rather than part of the road.

Groups add one more failure point. When kids cross one at a time, a driver watching the line go by can reasonably decide it has ended, then start moving as the last child arrives. Adults walking with a group should count heads before stepping clear or waving a driver through, especially where parked cars flank the driveway entrance and hide whoever is lagging behind.

Illustration: Quartz

Legal right of way is not the same as being seen. A marked crosswalk, a four-way stop, or a walk signal tells a driver what to do. It says nothing about what the driver has actually noticed. On Halloween night, a costumed pedestrian in low light is easy to miss.

The safer habit is confirmation before commitment. Wait until a car has come to a complete stop, not merely slowed. Look for eye contact with the person behind the wheel before stepping off the curb. A car rolling toward a stop sign at walking speed has not stopped yet. A driver scanning left for a gap in traffic can look straight past a child standing to the right.

Children tend to make one specific logical error here. Because they can see a car, they assume the driver can see them. In daylight that is usually true. After sunset, in a dark cape or a brown costume, it often is not. A driver's attention is already split between the road ahead, the mirrors, parked cars on both shoulders, and movement at the edge of the headlight beam.

Corners near busier roads deserve the most caution. A driver cutting through a residential grid may not expect a steady stream of pedestrians at an intersection that is quiet 364 nights a year. Speed and scanning habits follow that expectation, not the reality ahead.

Headlight glare works against pedestrians too. An approaching car's lights make it hard for a child to judge whether the vehicle is slowing, turning, or holding speed. The safest default is to wait until the answer is obvious.

Parents can teach this by narrating it. Pause at the curb out loud, point at an oncoming car, name the moment it fully stops, then cross. That gives kids a sequence they can repeat on their own.

Illustration: Quartz

An early start removes the single largest risk factor in Halloween pedestrian crashes: darkness. NHTSA's 2024 data show 76% of pedestrian deaths occur after dark, and Halloween pushes an unusual number of young walkers onto the street during exactly those hours.

Dusk is the practical compromise. A family that leaves in the last stretch of daylight and wraps up around full nightfall covers the same blocks and fills the same bag, but spends far less of the evening in conditions where a driver struggles to pick out a small figure near the curb. In most of the continental U.S., the sun sets between roughly 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 31, depending on latitude and where a town sits inside its time zone. Even a 30-minute earlier departure changes how much of the route happens in usable light.

The youngest trick-or-treaters gain the most. Preschoolers and early-elementary kids are physically small, often dressed in elaborate outfits that are hard to read at a distance, and more likely to drift toward the road as they tire.

Older kids and teenagers who head out later fall outside this tip and have to compensate in other ways, with carried lights and extra care at every crossing mattering more the deeper into the night they walk.

Many towns, homeowners associations, and police departments publish official trick-or-treat hours, and those windows often open before sunset for this reason. Checking the local schedule a few days ahead lets a family plan around it rather than guess when neighbors will start answering the door.

Drivers benefit from the same clustering. When a neighborhood's foot traffic concentrates in a defined early window, the heaviest crossing activity happens while visibility is still workable, and peak pedestrian density does not land in the darkest hours. Caution still applies later, since not every household or child sticks to the posted time.

Illustration: Quartz

A pale or brightly colored costume gives a driver far more warning than a black, navy, or deep-purple one. Reflective trim sewn across the chest and the shoulder blades extends that advantage, bouncing headlight beams straight back toward the car.

Reflective tape, ribbon, and iron-on strips cost little and can be built into the outfit rather than stuck on afterward. A silver band along the hem of a cape, piping down the sleeves of a robe, a belt, a sash, or a stripe around the brim of a hat all read as part of the design while still catching light from the side and the rear.

Color choice does work on its own, before any trim is involved. A white sheet, a pale princess gown, a light-gray astronaut suit, or light face paint stands out against dark asphalt and shrubbery under streetlights. Most costume themes have a lighter variant, so parents buying or sewing one usually have room to choose.

Some costumes are dark by definition. A vampire's cape, a witch's robe, a ninja outfit, or a black cat suit loses its look remade in cream. The fix is to offset the color elsewhere: reflective stickers on a candy bucket, a glow bracelet at the wrist, a light-up necklace, or tape running down the outside of the legs, where a crossing driver's headlights land first.

Placement matters as much as quantity. Material on the back covers the moment a child walks away from a car about to pass, and material on the sides covers the angle a driver sees when pulling out of a driveway. Trim concentrated only on the chest leaves two of three approach angles dark.

None of this shifts responsibility onto the child. A reflective costume buys a driver time, but it works only if the driver is looking.

Illustration: Quartz

Trade a full-face mask for face paint before Halloween night rather than adjusting it on the sidewalk. Masks with narrow eye slits cut a child's field of vision at the worst possible moments — stepping off a curb, crossing a driveway, judging whether a car is slowing.

Face paint handles most designs. A skeleton, a tiger, a clown or a zombie all read clearly in paint. None of them covers the eyes, restricts breathing, or slides out of position when a child runs up a porch step. Paint also stays comfortable across a long evening in a way rubber and plastic rarely do.

Where a mask is central to the costume, small changes help. Enlarging the eye openings, or switching to a half-mask that covers only the upper or lower face, restores much of the side vision a full mask takes away. Hats and hoods pulled low cause the same narrowing. A trial run at home in good light shows whether a child can see to each side or has to turn their whole head to check for traffic.

Sight lines are not the only thing a costume can take away. Oversized sleeves, a dragging hem, an elaborate headpiece or wings wide enough to catch on a doorframe pull a child's attention downward and inward. The focus goes to managing the outfit instead of watching the street. Simpler construction keeps that attention where it belongs.

Vision problems compound every other risk of the night. A child who cannot see a car approaching from the side leans harder on the adult walking with them, misjudges crossings more often, and reacts later when something unexpected happens. Costume color governs how well a driver can pick the child out of the dark. Costume design governs how well the child can see the driver. Both deserve a check, and they are separate questions.

Illustration: Quartz

A flashlight in a child's hand does more for visibility than almost any other low-cost addition to a Halloween costume, because a moving light registers with a driver long before a small figure in fabric does. Glow sticks produce a weaker but still useful effect, and they cost little, weigh nothing, and are simple enough for a young child to hold or wear.

The flashlight also works in the other direction. It lets a child see what is under their feet — a cracked sidewalk slab, a sunken curb cut, an unlit porch step at a house they have never visited. Aiming the beam down and a few feet ahead keeps both jobs going at once, and it avoids shining light into the eyes of approaching drivers.

Glow sticks have the advantage of being wearable. Strung as a necklace, snapped into bracelets, clipped to a costume, or tied to a candy bucket handle, they leave both hands free for doorbells and candy. Spreading several small ones across a costume beats carrying one large stick: a scattered set of lights outlines a human shape, while a single point of light is harder for a driver to interpret or locate.

For groups moving through a neighborhood together, it helps to have at least one flashlight toward the back of the cluster and one on the side nearest the street, so an approaching driver can see how far the group extends rather than only where it begins.

Light-up costume accessories do the same work. LED-trimmed capes, wearable light strands, battery-powered wands, and light-up sneakers fold into a costume without looking like safety gear. Side visibility is what matters most — cars often approach from a perpendicular angle at driveways and corners, and a light that faces only forward leaves a child dark from the direction the risk is coming from.

Illustration: Quartz

A trick-or-treater staring at a screen is not watching for cars, and the fix is simple: screens stay pocketed while the group is moving, and come out only once everyone has stopped at a front door. Eyes on a phone mean no eyes on the curb edge, the driveway mouth, or the car turning in behind.

The problem is attention, not the hardware. A child scrolling, texting, or filming on the move has committed both eyes and focus somewhere other than the street. Every other precaution a family takes that night — reflective trim, a flashlight, an adult alongside — assumes the child still has some awareness of what is happening around them.

The rule applies to adults, too. A parent supervising a cluster of younger kids is often the only person in the group actively scanning for traffic, and an adult answering texts on the sidewalk has handed that job to nobody. Group photos, checking in with another family, looking up the neighborhood's trick-or-treat window — all of it can happen standing still.

Phones have legitimate uses on Halloween night. They help families coordinate meeting points, confirm which blocks are handing out candy, and capture costume photos at a doorstep. None of those tasks requires a screen in motion near moving vehicles.

Older kids out without an adult are the hardest group to reach, since the phone is usually how they are organizing the whole evening. A concrete instruction works better than a vague appeal to pay attention: phone in the pocket while walking, phone in hand only when standing still. That gives a teenager a rule they can follow on a noisy, crowded street.

Set the expectation before anyone leaves the house. A reminder given at the front door, while costumes are still being adjusted, lands better than one shouted across a street later in the evening.

Illustration: Quartz

A bulky costume can keep a car seat harness from sitting snugly against a child's body, which weakens how well the seat protects them in a crash. Padding, layered fabric, and hard decorative pieces create slack in the straps even when the harness feels tight to the adult buckling it.

The cleanest fix is to drive with the child in everyday clothes and change them into the costume after you arrive, then change back before the ride home. That sidesteps the fit problem rather than improvising around it on a dark street with other kids waiting in the car.

When a costume change isn't realistic, remove the bulkiest outer layers before buckling — a padded vest, a stiff cape, a second costume worn over the first. Then check the fit the way NHTSA advises for any harness: once the straps are buckled and tightened, you should not be able to pinch a fold of webbing at the child's shoulder. If you can, something under the strap has to come off before the car moves.

Rigid costume pieces need a separate check. Plastic breastplates, molded wings, stiff shoulder armor, and chunky chest accessories change how the harness lies across the torso, and in a collision they sit between the child and the restraint meant to spread crash forces across the strongest bones.

Chest clip position matters too, and a costume can disguise it. The clip belongs at armpit level rather than sliding toward the stomach, and a slick or padded costume surface makes it easier for the clip to drift during the drive.

The same logic applies to a booster seat used with the vehicle's own belt. The lap portion needs to sit low across the hips and the shoulder belt flat against the chest and collarbone, not over a layer of stuffing. Costume padding compresses on impact, and the gap it leaves behind is slack the belt can no longer take up.

Illustration: Quartz

Drop your speed on residential streets for the entire evening of Halloween, including stretches where no trick-or-treaters are in sight. Children can emerge from between parked cars, hedges, or front steps with almost no warning, and a slower car gives a driver more time to see the movement and more room to stop.

The physics favor patience. Braking distance climbs roughly with the square of speed, so the gap between 25 mph and 35 mph is not a 10-mph difference in outcome. It means a longer run of pavement before the car stops, and a harder impact if it does not.

Speed also governs how much a driver can take in. At a slower pace, there is time to scan porches, driveway entrances, and the shadowed edges of a street where a small figure in a dark costume registers late. At higher speeds, the first clear sighting of a child may come too close to the bumper to matter.

The caution should run well past the hours when doorbell traffic peaks. Some families head out late, and Halloween parties send guests home on foot. Decorations, cars lining both curbs, and strobing yard lights cut visibility regardless of the hour on the clock.

Easing off the accelerator early beats braking hard late. A driver who has already slowed on approach to a group of kids on a sidewalk keeps full control, while one who stabs the brake risks a skid or a swerve into the next lane.

Blocks near schools, parks, and any street a neighborhood has turned into a trick-or-treating hub deserve the most restraint, including from drivers passing through on the way somewhere else. Treating every residential block as though a child could step out at any second is a reasonable default on a night that fills quiet streets with pedestrians.

Illustration: Quartz

Driving after drinking is dangerous any night, but Halloween stacks impaired drivers onto streets already full of children on foot. NHTSA figures for 2022, the most recent year the agency has published, show how often alcohol is a factor. In 48% of fatal pedestrian crashes that year, the driver, the person on foot, or both had been drinking. Impaired driving also climbs on October 31.

Alcohol degrades the exact abilities a driver leans on hardest in a neighborhood full of trick-or-treaters. Reaction time slows. Peripheral vision narrows. Judgment about how fast a car is closing on something ahead gets worse. A driver who would normally brake in time for a child stepping off a curb may not. That drop in performance begins well below the 0.08% blood alcohol limit used in most of the U.S.

Anyone heading to a Halloween party should settle the ride home before the first drink. A sober driver named in advance, a rideshare booked ahead, or a transit route checked before leaving removes the judgment call at the point when judgment is least reliable. Costume parties run late, and the walk to a car in cold night air can feel deceptively sobering without any change in blood alcohol.

Parents on driving duty carry a narrower margin than usual. A car moving costumed kids between a relative's house, a neighborhood, and home works crowded residential streets at peak pedestrian hours. The passengers may be unbuckling, shifting around, or asking for attention.

Hosts shape the outcome too. Stocking non-alcoholic drinks, serving food, and closing the bar before the night winds down all help. So does arranging rides for guests who have been drinking. None of that is specific to Halloween. What is specific is who is outside the car — small, dark-costumed children moving unpredictably between houses in the hours when crash risk peaks.

Illustration: Quartz

Treat every costumed child near a residential street as someone who could step into the road without warning, and yield to pedestrians instead of waiting for them to yield to you. Where one trick-or-treater is visible, more are almost always close by, because kids move house to house in groups of siblings, friends, and classmates.

That pattern should change how a driver reads a block. A child passing in front of the car is not a cue to accelerate — it is a cue to ease off further, scan both shoulders and the front yards, and expect a straggler trailing behind, slowed by a dragging cape or busy sorting candy.

Yielding early builds in room for error. Stopping several car lengths short of a crosswalk, rather than creeping to the edge of where a group is walking, leaves space if a child misjudges a gap and steps off the curb anyway. A fully stopped car also tells the kids themselves they have been seen, which is hard to read from a vehicle still rolling forward.

Parked cars and driveway mouths are where this matters most. A child shorter than the hood of a parked SUV stays hidden until the instant they reach the travel lane, and on Halloween night neighborhood streets fill bumper to bumper with cars belonging to visiting relatives and party guests. Any block with that parking density should be driven as a stretch where a pedestrian can appear with no warning at all.

The same patience applies at stop signs and intersections. A rolling pause that passes without consequence on an ordinary Tuesday is not enough when children are crossing mid-block and approaching from angles a driver would not normally check. Two or three extra seconds spent confirming every direction is clear, including the gaps behind parked vehicles, prevents the collision that happens only because a car moved a beat too soon.

Illustration: Quartz

Every child riding to or from Halloween activities needs to be secured in an age- and size-appropriate car seat, booster, or seat belt before the vehicle moves. The holiday does not change that requirement, but the scramble of getting a costumed group out the door makes it easy to skip.

The harder part is the recheck. A Halloween evening by car often means a dozen short hops — a relative's house, a friend's block, a party across town — and each stop is a fresh chance for a child to come unbuckled. Kids unlatch to adjust a hem, dig through a candy bag, or reach for something on the floor, and then the car pulls away with one of them unsecured. Confirming every buckle at every departure, not just the first one, is what makes the rule hold up over a long night.

Responsibility sits with whoever is driving. In a carpool of kids from several families, the driver should check each child individually rather than trusting that the older ones handled it themselves or that the younger ones have stayed put since the last stop.

A quick two-part check catches the most common failures. Look at the buckle to confirm the latch is engaged, then run a hand along the harness or belt to confirm it lies flat and snug with no slack. That takes a few seconds per child and surfaces both an unlatched buckle and a loose strap.

Older kids who have outgrown a booster still need the belt sitting correctly. The lap portion belongs low across the hips, not up on the stomach. The shoulder portion should cross the middle of the chest and the collarbone rather than cutting into the neck or sliding behind the arm. A shoulder belt tucked under an arm does not restrain the upper body in a crash, and it is a common shortcut among kids who find the strap uncomfortable.

Illustration: Quartz

Skip padding and rigid plastic when choosing a costume for a child who will ride in a car seat. Consumer Reports recommends buying or sewing outfits made without either, since both materials keep a harness or a seat belt from sitting correctly against a child's body.

That decision gets made at the store or the sewing table days ahead, not in a dark driveway with a restless kid already strapped in.

A costume built over a thin base layer — a leotard, a T-shirt and leggings, a simple tunic — buckles the same way everyday clothes do. A quilted muscle suit, a stuffed-animal bodysuit, or a foam dinosaur shell does not, and pulling the straps tighter does not solve it, because the webbing is compressing stuffing instead of holding the child.

Hard surfaces create a separate problem. Plastic breastplates, shoulder armor, molded shells, and stiff decorative buckles sit between the restraint and the body. In a crash, the belt loads against that object rather than against the hip and shoulder bones meant to take the force. Those pieces should come off before the ride and go back on at the door.

Layered designs make that routine workable. A superhero outfit whose cape, armor, and boot covers snap over a plain base can be converted for the car and back again in moments, which matters on an evening with several stops — a grandparent's house, a neighborhood loop, a party, then home. A costume sewn as one bulky piece offers no such option.

Wings, tails, long trains, and oversized headpieces belong in the trunk or the footwell. They push a child forward or twist their posture in the seat, which changes how the harness runs across the body.

The same thinking applies to the adult at the wheel. A padded suit bunches behind the shoulder belt. A full mask cuts the peripheral vision a driver needs to catch a child stepping off a curb, and gloves with claws get in the way of the steering wheel. Drive in regular clothes and change after parking.

Illustration: Quartz

Kids riding between trick-or-treating stops should step out of the car onto the curb, never into a travel lane, and the driver should switch on the hazard lights while stopped. Those two habits keep children out of the roadway during the seconds they are most exposed, and they warn approaching traffic that a vehicle is sitting still in the dark.

Where you stop matters as much as how. A stretch of open curb under a working streetlight, with enough room for a rear door to swing fully open, is worth circling the block to find. The first gap on a crowded street usually is not that spot. A door opening into a narrow lane forces a child to step toward traffic before reaching the sidewalk.

Unloading on the curb side removes most of the risk outright. Children climbing out through a street-side door stand in the lane while they untangle a cape, grab a candy bucket, or wait for a sibling. Routing everyone out the passenger side, including the adult if the driver can do it safely, keeps the group on the sidewalk from the moment the door opens.

Hazard lights serve two purposes. They mark the car as stationary rather than creeping along, and they make the vehicle easier to pick out on a block cluttered with inflatable decorations, orange string lights, and cars lining both shoulders. A driver coming up from behind gets a clearer read on what is happening ahead.

This is hardest on streets with no dedicated parking, which describes much of the U.S. on October 31. Wedging into a slot between two parked vehicles to unload recreates the blind-spot problem that makes walking out from between parked cars dangerous in the first place. A child stepping out from behind a bumper stays hidden from oncoming traffic until they are already in the road. If no clear curb space is open on the block, driving to the next one costs the group a minute at most.

Illustration: Quartz

Switch the headlights fully on before driving anywhere on Halloween evening. Daytime running lights are not a substitute. In most vehicles they light only the front of the car at reduced intensity and leave the taillights dark, so a car running on DRLs alone is close to invisible from behind on an unlit residential street.

The confusion is built into modern cars. Daytime running lights come on by themselves when the engine starts, so the view through the windshield looks lit even with the headlight switch off. Backlit dashboards add to it: a fully illuminated instrument cluster no longer signals that the lights are on, the way dim gauges once did. The fix is a glance at the headlight indicator symbol, or a turn of the switch to on rather than auto, before pulling away from the curb.

Full headlights do two jobs at once on Halloween night. They push usable light farther down the street, which buys a driver more distance to pick out a child in a dark costume, a stroller on a sidewalk, or an inflatable decoration spilling onto the pavement. They also mark the car for the people walking around it, including kids at a curb trying to work out whether a vehicle is approaching, parking, or turning into a driveway.

Taillights matter as much as the beams in front. Trick-or-treaters often cross behind a car that has just passed, assuming it has continued down the block. If that car is slowing, pulling to the curb, or reversing, lit taillights and brake lights are the only cue a pedestrian gets. Running on DRLs alone strips that cue away.

High beams are a separate question and a poor choice on a crowded residential street, where they wash out oncoming drivers and can dazzle pedestrians at close range. Low beams, switched fully on from the first minute of the drive, are the setting that works for the whole evening.

Illustration: Quartz

Park where you can pull forward to leave, because reversing is the maneuver most likely to put a small child in a spot the driver cannot see. A child who is short, crouching, or standing close to the bumper can sit below the sightline of the mirrors and outside the frame of a backup camera entirely.

Planning the parking spot handles most of this risk before it arises. Pulling through a driveway so the car faces the street, choosing a curb space with an open exit ahead, or stopping slightly farther from a house in exchange for a forward departure all remove the need to reverse on a street full of pedestrians.

Where backing up cannot be avoided, have another adult step out and stand where the area behind the vehicle is fully visible, then confirm the path is clear before the car moves. That second set of eyes covers ground mirrors and a camera do not, particularly the space immediately behind and beside the rear bumper.

The holiday raises the stakes on an ordinary driveway. A stretch of pavement that sees almost no foot traffic on a normal Tuesday may have a dozen costumed kids cutting across it in a single evening, many of them moving quickly and focused on the next front door rather than on a car's reverse lights.

Backup cameras and rear cross-traffic sensors have made reversing safer, but they work best as a supplement to a driver's own checks rather than a replacement for them. Glancing over the shoulder, reversing slowly enough to stop almost immediately, and treating any sensor alert as a reason to shift into park and look are all worth doing on Halloween night.

Drivers picking up or dropping off trick-or-treaters should think about this at the moment they arrive. The choice between pulling fully into a driveway and stopping at the curb usually settles, right there, whether a reversing maneuver will be necessary later.