There are over 35 million vehicles on Britain’s roads and road traffic accidents are becoming more common as that number increases. In 2009, a total of 222,156 incidents were reported of all severities with 195,234 people slightly injured and 2,222 people killed. With so many car crashes, you would be right in assuming that the types of injuries sustained in car crashes varies wildly. Thankfully, most accidents result in only minor or slight injuries.
The most common injuries sustained in a car crash are whiplash and facial injuries and cuts, scrapes and bruises. Let’s take a look at these injuries in greater detail:
Whiplash
Whiplash is a soft tissue injury and it is the most common car crash injury. It is caused by sharp head movements forwards, backwards and sideways. These sharp movements stretch the ligaments and tendons in the neck. Inflammation usually follows the next day but the true extent of a whiplash injury can take as long as a week to surface.
Whiplash is graded on a scale of 0 – 5 with 5 being extremely severe and 0 being non-existent. 1 – 3 are the most common whiplash grades, which are minor (1), moderate (2) and severe (3). The most common grade is 1, and the average compensation pay-out for this kind of injury is £1,000-£3,000. UK Claim Lawyers (enter to find out more) however can win you more compensation, depending on the circumstances surrounding your accident.
Facial Injuries
Facial injuries in a car accident are most commonly caused by an air bag deploying. Air bags protect the driver and passenger from banging their heads, and they are very effective at their job, however they inflate as fast as 200mph so they can cause severe injury to one’s face. It is not uncommon to see people with a broken nose or a busted lip after a car crash as a result of their air bag going off, for example.
Facial injuries are also extremely common in older vehicles and among victims who were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of their accident. Shattered glass and windscreen penetration from a foreign object can also cause facial injuries.
Cuts and Bruises
Shattering glass and flying debris is the main cause of cuts and bruises in a car crash, however these are also common injuries where older vehicles without modern safety technology are involved, such as active crumple zones.
Most of these injuries are relatively minor, however some are extremely severe and can cause death by bleeding out. They can also force one to take time off work, because bruising is not usually acceptable in a customer service role. As a result, car crash and road traffic accident claims for cuts and bruises are on the rise, and you too could have a strong case for compensation if you have suffered such injuries in a car crash.