Whiplash is a common injury of a car accident

Whiplash is a common injury of a car accident. Serious whiplash injuries can have a long-term impact on a person’s life, and victims of whiplash should file a personal injury claim seeking the maximum compensation for their pain and suffering.

If you been injured in a car accident, and are experiencing pain in your neck, your probably suffering from whiplash. Whiplash is a soft tissue injury to the neck that lasts from a couple of days to years depending on severity of the impact. This pain can stem from an injury to the spine.

Whiplash can effect a persons day-today life both at home and at work. Common symptoms of whiplash include neck pain and stiffness, headaches and dizziness, difficulty swallowing and chewing, shoulder pain, back pain, and injuries to the muscles and ligaments.

If you have been injured in a car accident, seeing the right type of physician will be able to diagnose and treat your whiplash pain. Often times victims of car  accidents do not think they have suffered whiplash or any other injury because symptoms may not appear for hours, even days after the accident.

The term “whiplash” is used to describe a variety of neck injuries that often occur in rear-end crashes.

Whiplash Statistics

• More than 3 million Americans are injured by a car  accident every year.
• The reported risk of injury in Low Speed Rear Impact Collisions is 35-68%.  The Japanese Auto Insurance Rating Association reports a 50% neck injury rate.
• About 10% of those injured become permanently disabled.
•“Minor” neck injuries account for up to 60% of all permanent impairment claims.
• So, for every 6 million occupants in Low Speed Rear Impact Collisions:
1. About 3 million will be injured (about the population size of South Carolina).
2. About 1.5 million will have chronic pain (about the population size of Nebraska).
3. About 300,000 of these become disabled usually due to pain (about the population size of Wyoming).
• Nearly half of all chronic neck pain in America is due to car crashes—mostly Low Speed Rear Impact Collisions.
• About 9% of all Americans suffer from chronic neck pain due to Low Speed Rear Impact Collisions.
• Children are at 2/3 the risk of adults.
Information provided by the Spine Research Institute of San Diego

Neck sprains and strains are the most frequently reported injuries in U.S. insurance claims. An estimated 66 percent of all insurance claimants under bodily injury liability coverage and 57 percent under personal injury protection coverage — two important insurance injury coverages — reported minor neck injuries.

43 and 34 percent of bodily injury liability and personal injury protection claimants, respectively, neck sprains or strains were the most serious injuries reported.

The cost of the claims in which neck pain was the most serious injury was about $8.8 billion, representing approximately 25 percent of the total dollars paid for all crash injuries combined.

Whiplash injuries can be sustained in any type of crash but occur most often in rear-end collisions. Based on National Automotive Sampling System data, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that there were 805,581 whiplash injuries occurring annually.

Of these injuries, NHTSA estimated that 272,464 occurred as a result of a rear impact.

4 A 1999 Institute study found that 26 percent of drivers of rear-struck vehicles reported neck injuries to their insurance company. 5

This was about the same as the 24 percent neck injury rate reported in a 1972 Institute study. 6

Estimates of neck injury rates in other studies have ranged from 7 to 37 percent, depending on whether police or motorists reported the information. 7, 8, 9

Injured in a rear end accident which has left you with pain and injury?

Contact a New York injury attorney who is intimately familiar with the procedures involved in a whiplash claim, and begin to seek the compensation you deserve today.

• ⁵ Farmer, C.M.; Wells, J.K.; and Werner, J.V. 1999. Relationship of head restraint positioning to driver neck injury in rear-end crashes. Accident Analysis and Prevention 31(6):719-28.
• ⁶ O'Neill, B.; Haddon, W., Jr.; Kelley, A.B.; and Sorenson, W.W. 1972. Automobile head restraints: frequency of neck injury claims in relation to the presence of head restraints. American Journal of Public Health 62(3):399-406.
• ⁷ Braunstein, P.W. and Moore, J.O. 1959. The fallacy of the term 'whiplash' injury. American Journal of Surgery 97(4):522-9.
• ⁸ Quinlan, K.P.; Annest, J.L.; Myers, B.; Ryan, G.; and Hill, H. 2004. Neck strains and sprains among motor vehicle occupants: United States, 2000. Accident Analysis and Prevention 36(1):21-7.
• ⁹ States, J.D.; Balcerak, J.C.; Williams, J.S.; Morris, A.T.; Babcock, W.; Polvino, R.; et al. 1972. Injury frequency and head restraint effectiveness in rear-end impact accidents. SAE technical paper series 720967. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers.