Trick-or-treating is fun for kids. Halloween parties can be just as much fun for adults. But put one and one together and it could create a Halloween of nightmarish proportions with the combination of young children in dark costumes wandering through the streets and partygoers behind the wheel.

That’s why local law enforcement is taking some preventative measures on Halloween night. Various agencies will be taking part in the Halloween Governor’s Highway Safety Program “Booze It & Lose It” campaign. It’s dangerous to drink and drive all the time, but on Halloween, it’s especially so.

Law enforcement will also be putting out lighted message boards in high traffic trick-or-treating areas like East Main Street and the Smallwood neighborhood in Washington. The signs will remind motorists to beware the ghosts, goblins, witches, princesses and superheroes that might be flying off the sidewalks into the roadways.

But parents and/or grandparents have a role here too. Law enforcement advises that children’s costumes should be highly visible. Light colored costumes will work, but adding reflective tape to any costume would be even better — that way headlights will pick up any children in the road or crossing it.

Advice for parents extends to staying with young children, getting out of the car and walking with them, first up one side of a street, then crossing to the other side, together, so that children aren’t zigzagging across streets from one house to another.

It’s a holiday — the scariest we’ve got. But we can all do our part to make it a little less scary.