Twenty six percent of all drivers were involved in a car accident over the last several years. When a car accident happens to you, you must be prepared for what’s next. San Diego chiropractors and spinal decompression specialists are revealing the shocking findings that you must know. It is important to know what to do after a car accident.
If you haven’t noticed by now, money buys policy and makes the laws in this country. The more money big business throws at politicians, the more rules are shifted in their favor. Take New Jersey for example in the following. They actually have a policy called pay for play. It is actually accepted for contractors to be awarded large contracts based on the size of their political contributions to political campaigns.
Insurance companies have been playing a similar game of pay for play for a very long time. The big difference is when contractors in New Jersey are awarded jobs as political favors, it takes money out of the pocket of someone who really deserves it. When insurance companies play this game, the lives of car accident victims are ruined. Here are some shocking statistics. Nearly 43,000 people died in car accidents in 2002, reports the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There are approximately 6.4 million car accidents each year. There are about 3 million car-related injuries a year and 2 million permanent injuries. About 26% of drivers have been involved in a car crash in the last five years.
Many people are involved in accidents. Almost all Americans will be involved in at least one car accident at some time in their life. So what do insurance companies do with all these accidents and injuries they don’t want to pay for in the long run? Besides political lobbying, they fund research and fight every single claim to go in their favor.
Dr. Arthur Croft is one of the world’s leading experts on whiplash and car accident injuries. Here’s what he says about the situation: So it seems quite clear that the playing field is not level. It’s the Fortune 500 against the doctors and their patients, and the score is about 3-1. They send the principles of this work as expert witnesses to refute injury in low-speed impact cases. The companies carefully forbid the publishing of any work that fails to serve their interest, thus denying any fair peer-review from within the scientific community. This juggernaut of non-science has inculcated the legal world by spending literally billions of dollars fighting even relatively insignificant claims. They seem finally to have impressed attorneys that it simply is not worth their effort to pursue such claims. The insurance industry has funded their own research.
Many times injuries and pain are not apparent at the time of the accident. Some injuries are even missed by emergency room technicians who are wonderful at spotting breaks and cuts, but don’t understand this type of hidden injury that may take weeks, months or even years to show symptoms. Insurance companies use their own faulty information to deny claims and refuse paying for your treatment. The fact of the matter is that low-impact car accident injuries are largely misunderstood by many.
Another big myth presented by insurance companies is if you don’t have damage to your car than you can’t be injured. This is just not true. The amount of damage to your car doesn’t accurately reflect the amount of injury to the person inside the car or the passengers inside the car. Studies show that injuries can occur at impact speeds of less than five miles per hour. This can occur when there is little or no damage to the car. For example, when race cars crash, they are specifically designed to easily break apart, and the driver usually walks away alive. This is because as the race car breaks apart, the energy is being absorbed by the parts of the car and not by the driver.
Today’s passenger cars and SUV’s are well built to absorb low speed impacts without significant damage to the bumper. The problem is that instead of “injuring” your car, the energy of impact is transmitted to the person in the automobile, much as energy from one pool ball is transferred to another upon impact. Simple physics (completely ignored by profit minded insurance companies) proves you can actually be injured worse when your car has no damage then when it flies into a million pieces!
Most people don’t realize even though they walk away from a minor car accident “without a scratch” there is a good chance, if left untreated; it is very likely they could develop a more serious problem later in life. This will cause a lot of ache and anguish. So, if you get in a little “fender bender”, how do you know if you are hurt? What must you do? Simply put, whiplash is when your vehicle gets struck and your body moves quicker than your head can react. Your muscles, ligaments, discs, nerves and spinal joints get stretched out and hurt. From time to time some of these neck structures are actually torn. A lot of times these injuries are not felt for hours or days. Other times your body reacts right away. Muscles form a protective cast around the injured area by tightening up and going into spasm. This spasm acts as a protective “cast” so you don’t shift your neck too much and make the injury worse. Spasm also removes the standard curve in your neck and can lead to permanent arthritic changes if left untreated.
Chiropractic care is extremely important for the care of whiplash injuries because it helps restore the spinal curves and normalize motion in the injured area. If these curves are not restored and proper motion is not brought back to the area, there is a chance of chronic neck and back pain.
Studies establish that chiropractic works for chronic whiplash. In 1999, the Journal of Orthopedic Medicine published the outcome of a study designed to determine if advanced chiropractic care helped chronic whiplash. One hundred patients were divided into three groups and treated on average for four months. The authors of the study concluded that the outcome from this study provide further evidence that chiropractic is an effective treatment for chronic whiplash symptoms.
If you have been injured in an auto accident in San Diego, visit New Century Spine Centers to get your spine evaluated. It is important to note that there is a good chance you have been injured in a car accident and should have a complete chiropractic examination, even if there is no damage to your car and you don’t have any immediate pain or symptoms. If you don’t, you may be setting yourself up for constant pain and suffering.
Learn more about chiropractic care. Stop by New Century Spine Centers site where you can find out all about car accident treatment and more information.