s type. But when I read in their conclusions that "a reasonably healthy human occupant can withstand a rear impact with a change in velocity of 8 km/h [5 mph] without sustaining significant injury, assuming the presence of a head restraint and a reasonably "normal" initial seating position", I take GREAT EXCEPTION. It is a shame that this will get into a courtroom. Five volunteers does not a paradigm make, with no negative feelings toward Mrs. Szabo and Welcher, to be sure. Their sample si
ze is not large enough to arrive at their conclusion, and is not representative of the larger, much larger, injured population. So, I disagree with you, based on that 1996 study. I have not seen any published study with a 67-year old gentleman. Of course, I know several 67-year old gentleman who are at far less risk of injury than several of my 37-year old gentlemen patients who smoke, are obese, have prior herniated discs, with no strength in the deep muscles of the spine, not measurable with SEMG. So age does not always have anything to do with risk, as you know.

Rusty, I look forward to meeting you. I am absolutely certain that you and many others have far greater experience in engineering and crash testing than I do. I know a lot more about the medical end than the engineering end of things. I enjoy a healthy debate. And I still certainly am open to learning and new ideas. But what I have no patience for is the notion that low speed, rear-end collisions cannot cause significant injury. That is a myth, and so my last post was strongly written, I realize that. As a practicing chiropractic physician treating patients with these injuries, I have to tell you that most of them are not malingerers (less than 5-10% in my experience), most of them are not involved in litigation, and many of them continue to have pain long after their lawsuits are done. I am a good example of a person involved in rear-end impact collisions 15 years ago, never sued anyone for anything, where there was no damage to my cars, and where I experienced horrendous nec
k pain, headaches and cognitive symptoms. There was never any secondary gain issue, and I was not part of some "whiplash culture", as Ferrari and Russell postulate. My own injuries led me to research this subject extensively, now for many years. That's my real certification. When I see conclusions drawn that overstate the actual data presented (e.g., West, McConnell, Castro and others), when I read court cases where the research is misused and misconstrued and bastardized at the expense of the injured to fill the pockets of the "experts", I am appalled. Research is being misused to "prove" something it cannot prove, and some of the researchers are trying to capitalize on that at the expense of injured victims. Those who treat the injured have to deal with that every day.

I am very interested in what your organization is doing re: low speed crashes. I would be interested in the course you mention. I know that Northwestern spent virtually no time looking at the dynamics of low speed crashes, and that the other ACTAR "real accreditation" courses did not ever deal with low speeds. So "real accreditation" held no interest to me, as I couldn't find anything dealing with low speed, elastic collisions. Seems like everyone's suddenly interested in the past five years.

And I don't know anything about head "multiplication" factors, except that I believe that Severy's research is still valid today. That has been confirmed more recently by Thomson and Romilly. Are you saying that the torso and head are NOT accelerated at an increased value cf. the vehicle, consistently? Are you saying that "jerk", or the rate of change of acceleration (of the head, etc.), has nothing to do with the potential for injury? Too detailed for this forum, I agree. I will wait until August.

I think my view of low-speed collisions is shared by many physicians, chiropractic (D.C.), AND allopathic (M.D.), from my many conversations with them. Thank you for starting a DIALOGUE, my point in starting this thread.

Best,

Greg Wright

Greg Wright
drwright@capecod.net

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