Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Carnage

Trick-or-Treaters Need Safe Streets, Not “Be Seen!” Tweets

Wow Wednesday! Be #safe, be seen this Halloween! Dress up your costume with retroreflective material. pic.twitter.com/2FkyYfgWIp

— Federal Highway Admn (@USDOTFHWA) October 28, 2015

Halloween is the worst day of the year for child pedestrian fatalities in the United States. A 2012 study by State Farm found that the average number of children killed by drivers more than doubles on October 31 compared to other days, based on federal crash data from 1990 to 2010.

So what should be a holiday for care-free fun is marked by admonishments, directed at parents and kids, to avoid getting killed by motorists, like this tweet from the Federal Highway Administration. There's also the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has been tweeting all week about how children should "be seen."

All fine, but maybe parents wouldn't have to preserve their children's lives by adding "retroreflective material" to costumes if transportation agencies made more of an effort to reduce crashes the other 364 days of the year. When the people at NHTSA put the onus on children to prevent crashes even as they neglect to regulate driver-distracting infotainment systems, how seriously do they take traffic safety?

Platitudes are not protecting children from reckless and inattentive drivers. If government agencies and officials want to keep kids safe, they’re going to have to do more than tweet about it.

Source.
Source
Source.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

NYPD’s Push To Criminalize Cycling Spells Trouble For Immigrant Workers

Safety for the community? Great. But aren't delivery workers part of the community, too?

May 9, 2025

Friday’s Headlines: Habemus Knicksum Edition

It was a big day yesterday, but we're not on the sports or the religion desk, so let's get to our news.

May 9, 2025

Friday Video: Who Ruined Outdoor Dining?

We sent our own video team to find out.

May 9, 2025

Decision 2025: Mayoral Hopefuls Discuss E-Bikes … With Joy and Concern

E-bikes are a vital tool for delivery workers and for people seeking to reduce their use of private cars. What would you do to both expand e-bike use and make streets safer? And the answers are...

Live from Albany: Hochul’s ‘Safety’ Measures Stripped from Budget

Lawmakers dropped three initiatives that Gov. Hochul said would have made roadways safer (though, as we'll see, that's very much in question). Let's review them.

May 9, 2025
See all posts