It can be dangerous business stepping outside your door, even during fun-filled festivities like trick-or-treating. With Halloween on the horizon, it’s important to think about safety on the spookiest night of the year, especially since pedestrians face a greater risk of being struck by a car.
This makes sense—after all, kids are spending their evening roaming a dark neighborhood in potentially dark costumes. In fact, per JAMA Pediatrics, pedestrians are 43% more likely to be killed by a vehicle on Halloween night than on comparable evenings.
Omaha, Nebraska Is the Safest U.S. City for Trick-or-Treating in 2026
A new September 2026 report from the family location-tracking app iSharing reveals the 10 safest U.S. cities for trick-or-treating. Sitting pretty at No. 1 is Omaha, Nebraska. On average, only 1 in 100,000 pedestrians is involved in a fatal car accident in the Midwestern city.
The study assessed the safety of major American cities by taking six key components into account, including violent crime rate (per 100K), robbery rate (per 100K), overall safety, population density (per square mile), walkability, and pedestrian fatality rate (per 100K, from 2020 to 2024). The objective was to determine how easy a metropolitan area is to navigate during trick-or-treat and how crowded the streets might be.
These factors produce the final Trick-or-Treat Safety Score, which is rated from 1 to 99. Pedestrian fatality rate is weighted the highest out of the aforementioned factors at 30%, followed by the violent crime rate at 25%, and the robbery rate at 15%.
iSharing sourced data for the violent crime and robbery rates from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program; population density from World Population Review; walkability from Walk Score; pedestrian fatality rate from Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design; and safety from Numbeo via crowdsourced surveys.
iSharing notes that on Halloween evening, specifically between 7-9 p.m., people check the location of their family members 47% more often than on any other evening. The study also reveals that concerns peak around 8 p.m., with “58% more check-ups.”
For Omaha, iSharing gives the city a Trick-or-Treat Safety Score of 99. It rates highly for walkability, overall safety, and lower robbery incidents.
- Population density: 3,412 per square mile
- Safety index: 56
- Violent crime rate: 369 per 100K residents
- Robbery rate: 47 per 100K residents
- Pedestrian fatality rate: 1.02 per 100K residents
- Walkability index: 48
- Trick-or-Treat safety score: 99
The rest of the Top 10 is as follows:
- 1. Omaha, Nebraska—Trick-or-Treat Safety Score: 99
- 2. Virginia Beach, Virginia—98
- 3. Boston, Massachusetts—96
- 4. El Paso, Texas—91
- 5. Columbus, Ohio—88
- 6. Colorado Springs, Colorado—86
- 7. Raleigh, North Carolina—84
- 8. San Diego, California—82
- 9. San Jose, California—82
- 10. Austin, Texas—80
