Headaches, low back pain and dizziness can all be caused by whiplash, but there's an easy way to prevent the problem without spending a dime. Victims of car accidents report more neck strains and sprains than any other type of crash injury.
Whiplash, defined as a whipping back of the head and neck, can be minimized, if not prevented altogether by adjusting your headrest.
Denver television station KMGH set out to find out if random passengers had their head restraints adjusted properly. Many said, "No."
Even though car manufacturers are working on ways to cut the number of whiplash injuries, you don't have to have a fancy car to get same the protection. The key to not letting whiplash happen is to position the restraint so your head and torso move together.
"Actually, what we'd like to do is raise your head rest up ... The lowest it should be is the top of your ears. The highest it can be is the top of your head," said Wendy Krajewski of a Denver-area fire department.
She said the top of the restraint should lie somewhere between the top of your head and the top of your ears and the restraint should be as close to your head as possible without pushing your head forward. Less than 4 inches between your head and the restraint is ideal.
If you'd like to learn more about positioning head restraints to prevent whiplash, go to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which in September gave the highest rating of "good" to 45 percent of the headrests it examined. It tested headrests in 228 vehicles from model year 2003.
In 1995, the group said only 3 percent of cars had "good" ratings.
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