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Taking the sting out of whiplash with a good head restraint
Story: Robin | Posted 6 July 2012 | In News
Keep ahead and alive: Adjust your head restraint to protect against whiplash
Author:
ROBIN ROBERTS
One of the UK’s largest motor insurers, estimates hundreds of thousands of whiplash claims could be prevented each year with better head restraints and seats in UK cars.
Axa carried out research, in conjunction with Thatcham, into the cars on the UK’s roads and estimates that only 34% have head restraints and seats that would be categorised as “good” when it comes to reducing the risk of the driver being the victim of whiplash injuries.
In the UK, over 1500 claims for whiplash are made per day – 570,000 per year – costing the insurance industry £2bn per year in payouts.[3] If 65%[4] of these could be avoided through better head restraints and seats this could mean a reduction of 370,500 claims costing around £1.3bn.
And consumers are increasing the risk for themselves through their own negligence. Only 39% of people ever adjust their head restraint while 26% of people say they don’t even know how to adjust it.[5] 23% of drivers say that they have been shown how their head restraint should be set – 13% when they bought their car.
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