A textbook example of how to lie with statistics.
In the entire US there are around 10 child pedestrian deaths on an average night. On Halloween there are only around 14 deaths despite thousands more children on the street. This means the actual risk per child is exponentially lower on Halloween night.
So the reality is the opposite of what’s being claimed. Halloween is perhaps the least dangerous day of the year for child pedestrians.
Which might also make sense, if drivers are aware that a lot of kids will be walking around, they might be more careful.
I wonder how the number of deaths has changed over time. Road and vehicle safety have improved, lighting improved, it’s more common for kids to have reflective objects on them, and fewer kids are going out. Maybe it was a lot worse in the past?
So discussions like the ones in this thread have helped save lives, but I’d much rather the post itself wasn’t misleading
Vehicle safety in the us for pedestrians is worse than ever. The amount of huge and heavy SUVs who hit people litterally like a truck with their high hoods, which also have huge dead spots in driver vision have counteracted the technical improvements made.
42 years of statistics were analyzed in the linked study. Perhaps the chart’s creators were trying to alarm drivers and parents to make them more careful, but they could have done so without wildly overstating the danger.
I wonder how the number of deaths has changed over time. Road and vehicle safety have improved, lighting improved, it’s more common for kids to have reflective objects on them, and fewer kids are going out. Maybe it was a lot worse in the past?
also they changed the date for daylight savings time changes so now it’s light until like, 8pm on halloween.
Got rage baited into this thread because of this. Glad this comment is already here.
Halloween is perhaps the least dangerous day of the year for child pedestrians.
Hooray!! Let’s make Halloween every day!
*in the US
Also more pedestrians=more pedestrian accidents, like duh
I also think being closer to twilight (even maybe dark in some areas) has something to do with it.
being so far south that a Halloween evening is still light, but still doing Halloween activities anyway, is a wild new idea for me.
it’s like Aussies wearing Santa hats in midsummer.
The only day of the year children are allowed to go on foot beyond the end of their home driveway.
People only walk around one day a year in your town?
Not at present, but I have spent time living in the stereotypical suburbs where nobody walks anywhere.
Maybe I’m getting old but I think I had this opinion always: I don’t understand why drivers don’t, eh, slow down?
But what about my freedom to rip thru the street breaking the sound barrier?
Most people, therefore drivers, are fucking stupid (at least in the U.S.).
World has changed alot since 2018.
Base rate fallacy?
Given it is almost certainly the day with the highest concentration of child pedestrians by a wide margin I can only imagine.
Still, sounds like a great reason to be extra special careful on the road on the 31st.
This was also only using info before 2019.
Is it bad I assumed the y-axis was like hundreds or thousands?
No, total. There are 366 unique dates.
Its also the busiest night of the year for pizza delivery and probably any other food delivery too.
I’m surprise it’s only a few times the background level. Historically, when more children went out, it was probably higher.
Yeah, looking at the stats, it’s actually probably one of the safer days for kids to be pedestrians given the amount of extra miles walked by kids on Halloween.
You’d really want this to be fatalities by miles walked, rather than raw fatalities.
Yup. In any lotsa-kids area, they’re everywhere, and everybody drives really slow because of it, but with 20 times the kids out and about, it’s not unusual at all that there’d be two or three times more fatalities.
False
Even without the stats, I would have assumed as much.
The more you have people and cars in the same space, the more they will collide, and the more people will be killed. I expect it’s not just kids but the same for adults too.
Double points?
Trunk-or-treat is fucking sad, but necessary in some areas.
