Saturday will be an especially dangerous time for our children—Halloween. Now, please don’t dismiss my concern and warning as another one of those fear-provoking accounts of poisoned food in trick-or-treat handouts. This is about danger in and from traffic. Well documented statistics tell us that children are four times more likely to be injured on Halloween than on any other night of the year. Four times. Halloween is the time for children to be especially careful and for adults to be full of care for them.

I don’t dismiss danger in candy and such being handed out. However, research shows this danger to be much over-hyped by frantic mothers and other media. This is the finding of Joel Best, professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. Since the 1980s Best has been tracking reports and complaints about contaminated candies given to trick-or-treaters. Each year he has released his findings from the most recent Halloween and concludes poisoned treats are at best seen as legend. The researcher says this: “I have been unable to find a substantiated report of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating.”

There have never been any more than two reports of incidents in any one year, and this was 1982. Follow-up research has shown most of these to be hoaxes. One would think the greater concern about infection at this time would be possible transmission of H1N1 flu.

The real danger on Halloween, however, is traffic accidents. The most definitive study was done by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a division of the Center for Disease Control, released in 1997. Results for 1975-1996 report Halloween night pedestrian accidents were fourfold that of any other night of the year. The report was delimited to accidents occurring in streets and did not count those in driveways, parking lots, or sidewalks. If these had been factored in, the rate would have been higher yet.

CDC finds two major factors present. Children often wear black costumes that make it difficult to see them crossing or walking in the streets. I have observed how children dart in and out, in their wonderful excitement, in a totally unpredictable manner.

Many costumes cause another serious problem.

Just as it is difficult for drivers to see children in dark costumes, it is difficult for the children themselves to see while wearing bulky costumes. Often there is just a small slit through which to peer, or the costume is so ill-fitting their eyes don’t reach the opening.

I urge parents and other responsible adults to accompany the children and control their movements. I urge drivers to be especially alert to this terrible possibility. We can prevent accidents by anticipating them. Otherwise, the scare of Halloween will be tragically real.

With reasonable caution about contaminated hand-outs, let’s focus more on physical safety for our children on Saturday.