And as the number of rear-end collisions increases, so the number of injured is growing. In Sweden, ten years ago, they were recording annually 70,000 traffic accidents which had caused injury to the neck. 200 of these cases were in Gothenburg. In 1996, nearly 400 new cases were recorded in Gothenburg, most of them young or middle-aged people with no previous health problems. In Sweden, the cost of medical treatment and for the insurance companies amounts to several hundred million kronor a year.
Whiplash is like an epidemic disease.
As with many other diseases, we do not know the causes. Nor do we know why some people have more problems than others. What instigates it, however, is very obvious - the traffic accident. We would come a long way if we could prevent this type of accident. But this is not easy, and we have to consider other factors which could be related to the outcome.