What is Whiplash From a Car Accident?
One question that has recently come to light is “What percentage of car accidents are rear ends?”, or put another way, “If I’m in a car accident, what are the chances that it will be a rear end collision?”
Well, the most recent detailed data we have on tap is about 20 years old. The main reason for this is that it takes a quite a bit of research to collate, analyze, extrapolate, interpolate, and condense the raw data into something meaningful, and the federal government funding for such lavish expenditures isn’t generally available.
That said, here is what we DO know….
In 1990, there were a total of 6,462,000 vehicle accidents reported in the United States. Of those, 1,153,000 were reportedly rear end accidents.
In that same year, there were 44,599 traffic accident fatalities, 2,084 of which were from a rear end collision.
What does this mean?
Essentially, the incidence of rear end accidents is 1,153,000/6,462,000…or roughly 23%. So if you’re driving along and are in a car accident, there is *almost* a 1 in 4 chance it was a rear end accident.
Interestingly, while rear end car accidents comprise almost a quarter of all accidents, less than 5% (2,084/42,515) of all traffic fatalities were the result of a rear end car accident collision, so in theory you stand a much better chance of surviving a rear end accident more than any other…especially if it involved a vehicle manufactured by hot-wheels.
One other report we came across indicated that rear end accidents account for up to 30% of all car crashes, however we were not able to see the raw numbers and therefore cannot substantiate this.
