Car Crashes – Low Speed

If you drive down the highway and notice a catastrophic car accident with glass and metal everywhere, and a hood on fire, you can be sure that someone involved in the accident suffered – or is in the process of suffering – major injuries.  But let’s say you are driving down a quaint suburban street and you notice a car merely bump into the rear-end of another car.  You may not assume that the driver of the struck car suffered any injuries.  Maybe they didn’t.  But maybe they did.  And maybe the injuries they sustained are going to change their life forever.

The latter train of thought, that the rear-ended driver may very well have been seriously injured, is one that is often disregarded by juries and lawyers for insurance companies.  They often argue that if there isn’t significant damage to the vehicle involved, there is no way that there are substantial juries to the people inside the car.  That argument is wrong.  The impacts of whiplash cannot be understated.  Isaac Newton wrote extensively about inertia, the idea that an object in motion will continue in motion, unless it is stopped.  So, if you are driving in a car, and the car crashes into another car (or another car crashes into it), the car will come to a stop.

However, the driver of the car, and his/her head and neck, will jerk forward or backward violently, at the same speed that the car was travelling before the impact.  Because of this, many injuries occur, even at low speeds of impact.  A way to prevent extensive injuries from whiplash is to have adequate headrests the seats.  Unfortunately, the Insurance Institute on Highway Safety reported that in 1995, about 91% of modern cars had headrest designs that were marginal, poor or bad.  And, as every driver knows, many cars from 1995 are still on the road today.

If you would like to further discuss low speed auto accidents and injuries that may be caused by such crashes, feel free to call the Law Offices of Aronberg & Aronberg at 561-266-9191 or email us at daronberg@build.simple.biz.

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