Can I Get A Neck Injury From A Fender-Bender?
This post will help you or a loved one involved in a car accident. No neck injury from a car accident is minor. You are more likely to get a permanent neck injury in a fender-bender than being rear-ended at a high speed. Neck pain from crashes tends to be chronic and last years. At least 40% of people with whiplash from an accident have neck pain and related symptoms five years later. This number climbs to 55-70% at the 15-year mark, which means that neck pain from accidents gets progressively worse over time.
If you think that you can’t get permanently disabled from a fender-bender with little to no vehicle damage – think again.
There are more permanent neck injuries from “minor” low-speed car accidents with a minimal amount of vehicle damage than there are from serious rear-end crashes. This may seem counter-intuitive or paradoxical, but the scientific data proves that it is true. Unfortunately, neck injuries that are caused by rear-end low-speed collisions tend to develop into conditions of chronic pain for a significant percentage of those involved in these accidents.
This Post Will Explain:
(1) why people in low-speed accidents suffer more permanent neck injuries;
(2) why being rear-ended should concern you; and
(3) what you can do to protect yourself.
Everything that I state in this post is backed up by scientific studies, all of which will be cited below the article.
Statistics & Studies
Approximately 23 million people in the United States will get into a low-speed rear-end accident in their lives. Whiplash is the most common injury in road accidents, and whiplash from road accidents is the number one cause of chronic neck pain. About 15.5 million Americans suffer from chronic neck pain originating from a crash.
When I say the pain is “chronic,” I mean it lasts for YEARS and it prevents people from working.
One study with 146 patients followed for 5 years after the accident found that 43% of patients had residual symptoms of pain, restricted motion, numbness or tingling in the arm or hand, and/or headaches at the 5-year mark (Hohl 1974). Importantly, these patients had radiological tests at the time of the accident that did not show spinal degeneration (they had no pre-existing injury), but at the 5-year mark 39% of the patients showed cervical spine degeneration on their films. This shows that a whiplash injury continues to progress and worsen over time.
Another recent study found roughly the same percentages in 2016. Five years after suffering whiplash in a car accident, 40% of the patients still had pain and other symptoms related to the crash (Tournier 2016). A meta-analysis—which looked at 38 separate studies on whiplash injuries—concluded that a significant proportion of people experience varying levels of pain and disability after the 3-month mark, which is contrary to what the insurance companies’ lawyers tell juries (Kamper 2008).
If one extends the time period further to around 15 years post-accident, two separate studies have shown that 70% and 55% of the people still experience neck pain, restricted motion, and other symptoms from the original accident (Squires 1996; Buntekorp 2002). While some people with symptoms of pain, headaches, numbness, and restricted motion will try to work through the pain, many studies have found that around 12% of those with whiplash injuries will either not return to work after a year, or they will require significant time off or an adjusted work schedule. The Squires study actually found that 33% of the people tracked after 17 years had taken work disability.
Several other studies have also found a greater percentage of people who were work disabled after the 1-year mark.
Based on these studies, we know that low-speed rear-end neck injuries are more serious than we thought, and that these injuries persist throughout the life of at least 40% of the people with neck pain from the crash. Also, the Hohl study shows that the injury isn’t fully manifested immediately after the crash. Rather, the injury continues to develop and worsen over time. You may have severe neck pain 15 years after an accident, but it all started with that “little” fender bender.
Why Is A Fender-Bender So Harmful?
How is it possible that a fender-bender causes more permanent neck injuries than a serious high-speed catastrophic crash with extensive vehicle damage?
Essentially, it is because of the difference in how your car’s seat backs and seat belts operate under low-speed collisions versus high-speed conditions.
In A High-Speed Crash
In a high-speed crash, when one is struck from behind by another car, your driver’s seat back will actually move slightly towards the rear of the car, and the seat will tilt much further back than a seat in a low-speed fender-bender. The tilting of the seat is called a controlled plastic deformation of the seat.
At first, it doesn’t seem to make sense that a seat would go backwards when you are hit from behind. However, when you are in an accident where you are struck from behind, the initial inertia of your body will cause it to sink backward into the seat (See Newton’s first and third laws of motion). This means the seat typically tilts back more than 60 degrees in a high-speed accident. In addition to the seat’s movement in a serious accident, the seat belt’s pretensioners are immediately activated and serve to lock you fully in place when your head, neck, and torso are all tilted back towards the rear.
So what does this mean? Well, the seat belt pretensioners prevent the rebound effect of what happens in whiplash, which means your head and neck are not thrusting forward after the initial backwards movement. Also, because the seat reclines back pretty far, your head is in alignment with your neck and torso and it is not tilted backwards (which is what initially happens in whiplash before the rebound effect whips the head forward).
In A Low-Speed Crash
Conversely, when you are in a low-speed fender-bender accident, your seat remains firm and barely tilts back, and your seat belt does not activate as quickly as when you are in a high-speed collision. When you are driving, although your torso is touching the seat, your head is not touching anything in most cases (although the head rests are improving in vehicles, they are often not adjusted or positioned properly, or the material properties could be improved for safety).
When you are struck from behind, the initial inertia of your head causes it to tilt backwards because it is not positioned against the seat like your torso is. It will tilt backwards until it hits the head rest. Milliseconds later, when the torso begins to move forward with the seat, a portion of your cervical spine is hyperextended outward because of the shear forces exerted on your neck, while another portion of the cervical spine wants to remain in place with the head. At a speed of only 15 miles or hour, the force exerted on your neck is approximately 100 pounds! (See Newton’s Second Law of Motion)
To clarify, although your head is still tilting backwards because of its inertia, your torso begins to move forward because it is positioned against the seat. This differential movement is what helps to cause the neck injury around C4-6 of your cervical spine because one part of the cervical spine is moving forward while the other part of the cervical spine remains back with the head. When the seat belt kicks in to stop the torso—which is later in a low-speed accident—the head suddenly whips forward and the cervical spine undergoes hyperflexion, causing more injury. Ultimately, areas around and including the cervical spine are injured during both the initial movement of the head to the rear while the torso moves forward, and also when the head is whipped forward after seat belt activation.
These injuries aren’t merely sprains and strains—cervical muscle function is permanently affected because of the active forces exerted on them; there can be small fractures of the facet joints of the spine; bleeding into the dorsal root ganglia; facet joint spearing; and, extensive ligament damage.
These Injuries Occur In Low-Speed Accidents Because:
(1) the seat back does not move backward or tilt and, thus, the head is not aligned with the torso;
(2) because the head is not positioned against the seat, it moves and accelerates/decelerates at a different velocity than the torso;
(3) since the seat belt pretensioner does not activate immediately, the head remains tilted back until the seat belt finally engages, which violently whips your head forward at a much faster speed than that of your car (your head acceleration is 2.5 times that of your own car!).
And, it bears repeating, the forces exerted on your neck are equivalent to 100 pounds in a 15-mile-per-hour hit! Another fascinating fact is that current bumper design allows the car to withstand any real visual damage up to around impacts around 9 miles-per-hour. However, permanent injuries have been proven to occur at speeds as low as 3.5 to 6 miles-per hour!
Ultimately, when you are hit from behind at a high-speed, the car’s design and safety mechanics help serve to protect you from any neck injury (if you are hit at too high of a speed, then obviously we are worrying about fatalities, and not a chronic neck injury).
I have had a countless number of clients with whiplash injuries from crashes with hardly any vehicle damage.
The Insurance Companies’ Position Is Always The Same:
(1) low-speed accidents do not cause permanent injuries;
(2) if there is no damage to the vehicle, then it is a low-speed accident that can’t cause a permanent injury; and
(3) whiplash injuries resolve quickly with physical therapy over a short duration—it is merely a sprain/strain that is not permanent.
Insurance companies attempt to pull the wool over the jury’s eyes by ignoring the scientific data and studies that prove permanent neck injuries are more likely to occur at lower speeds. They think that you’ll see a picture of the undamaged vehicle and automatically assume that someone cannot be hurt. This is wrong!
It is not true and it’s unfair to the person who did not ask to be hit from behind by a driver who wasn’t paying attention to the road. Now you know the truth. Don’t be misled by pictures of vehicles or talk about the velocity of impact. These are red herrings meant to distract jurors from the truth.
After An Accident
Now, for the most important point, you need to get medical and legal help for whiplash immediately after the crash. Find a doctor, chiropractor, or physical therapist to begin treating your injury as soon as possible after the crash. Also, since you now know the chances of a whiplash injury getting progressively worse over time, you need to find a lawyer that will get you compensation for future medical treatment and an appropriate amount of pain and suffering.
If you settle your case without accounting for the future spinal degeneration that occurs because of the accident, then you are doing yourself a disservice. You don’t know what kind of medical problems you will have down the road. The insurance companies always think you will be fine, and that your injury is minor.
The data and studies, as well as my personal experience, tell a different story. The neck pain persists and causes permanent issues. Do yourself a favor after being rear-ended: even if you think it’s only a fender-bender, get help immediately. You may suffer a great deal more down the road if you decide to “tough it out” without medical or legal help.
COHEN LAW GROUP
REFERENCES:
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