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As fun as it is to overhype the dangers of Halloween to frighten adults, we all know that poisoned candy and razor blade-filled apples are bunk. The odds of you finding an anthrax-laden piece of taffy are so improbable that they aren’t worth mentioning. You are statistically more likely to harm yourself by drinking a glow stick out of curiosity.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t spooky things going on. Plenty of sinister automotive stuff happens on October 31, making Halloween a scary time for cars.
Car thefts on October 31 tend to be higher than the status quo, at least in recent history. To prove it, the National Insurance Crime Bureau examined data from the National Crime Information Center’s stolen vehicle file from 2011 to 2015.
Last year’s Halloween saw a 7 percent jump in car thefts over the daily average. But the largest increase during the study’s five year span came in 2011, with 2,328 thefts on Halloween compared with the daily average of 2,054 — a 13 percent jump. The only year included in the study that didn’t show a higher incidence of theft was 2012. However, that year saw more cars stolen overall.
While more devastatingly sad than bone-chillingly spooky, children are traditionally much more likely to be hit by cars on Halloween. Accidents on that day go up in general, but 50 percent of the fatalities involve kids under fifteen. And drivers between 15 and 25 cause nearly a third of those fatal accidents.
The good news, according to the Sperling’s researchers who compiled the data, is that accidents have trended downward in recent years. The bad news is that the number of drunk drivers involved did not. Roughly 23 percent of pedestrian fatalities on Halloween involve a drunk driver and almost half of those involved a driver with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or higher.
And if you’re thinking that you can avoid all of this by just staying off the roads on October 31 with your car’s battery removed and fuel tank drained, think again. Vehicular vandalism goes through the roof on All Hallows’ Eve.
The Highway Loss Data Institute looked at insurance claims for vandalism made between 2008 through 2012. With a calculated average of 692 claims a day, Halloween raked in a whopping 1,253 — more than any other day of the year. That’s a lot of slashed tires, smashed windows, and body panels with freshly scratched-in curse words.
Happy Halloween.
[Image: Kafziel/WikimediaCommons (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
Bad things happen on a holiday rooted in celebrating evil. Who would have thunk?
And cops will tell you domestic violence cases surge on Thanksgiving.
Celebrating “evil” Ha, got a laugh at that. Halloween is awesome!
The current witches and black cats baloney isn’t the origin. It was originally New Year’s Eve to the Celts, who believed the date marked a blurring of the boundary between the living and the dead. The time was used by druid priests to make predictions.
The pagan New Year’s Day, November 1, was made All Saints’ Day by the Catholic Church to co-opt the pagan celebration. The night before was called All Hallow’s Eve, and later Halloween. There was nothing evil about it’s origins.
It reminds me of the set I ran into growing up that thought playing Dungeons & Dragons was devil worship.
Yeah, celebrating death except when it happens to affect you personally, and demonism are great, aren’t they?
Wow, October 231! What a L-O-N-G month!
Not that long, it comes right after October 230.
If I end up eating too many Irish beans in October, I typically turn out 240.
:D
A few years ago two of my cars got egged while parked in the street.
Ever since I have found every possible way to get all my cars into my driveway so at least they aren’t such easy targets on the street.
Last year I got through fairly unscathed. Someone put a magnet on the tailgate of my truck but that was it. I was forced to park it in the street because the driveway was otherwise full.
I’ll be out in the pumpkin patch as usual, freezin’ ass and waitin’ for the Great Pumpkin or Model 3, whichever shows first.
Scoff all you like, Saracens.
You’ve got a better chance of Snoopy the Red Baron showing up.
As a kid it frustrated me no end that I couldn’t make Snoopy sounds like Bill Melendez. Only later did I learn that he just spoke gibberish into a tape recorder and sped that up for Snoopy’s “vocal” track.
I dated Bill Melendez’ niece for a couple of years. Nice girl. She now owns some sort of distribution company in Tallahassee.
I’d be more interested in talking like the teacher.
That was a muted trombone, I think.
Snoopy is not the Red Baron. Snoopy fights the Red Baron. Snoopy is a beagle, the Red Baron is not.
So, there!
somebody owes you restitution
Back around 2000 I lived in a gated community of mostly retirees. One Halloween I went into Chicago to stay with a buddy and see George Carlin.
I came home to find that while I was gone, someone drove their car over 100 feet down my driveway to rear end my Wildcat hard enough to pop the dash pad loose.
Obviously whoever did it was never caught so I’ll never know whether it was just some drunk who missed a turn or whether it had to do with the neighbor kid who liked to let “friends” into the development to break into cars and wound up having to pay me $1800 in restitution.