Why Even Low Speed Car Accidents in Tampa Can Cause Injury

Many of the cases seen by Tampa accident attorneys involve clients involved in low speed Tampa car accidents. Often, any Tampa accident lawyer will tell you, even the client is surprised when they experience pain that seems much greater than what would be expected given the low speed of the impact.

What people don't realize is that while car design can help to reduce injuries, particularly from low speed Tampa car accidents, in certain accidents the human body is particularly vulnerable. For example, accident lawyers Tampa will tell you, in rear end collisions engineers have been able to design bucket seats and lap belts that significantly reduce injury to the lower back, especially minimal impact collisions.

But in a Tampa rear end collision, a person's neck can't be protected with the seats or the lapbelt. The average head weighs approximately 8 pds. In a rear end collision, Tampa accident attorneys will tell you that the body strapped into a car will move forward while the head lags behind. Then the body's forward force will slow down and begin moving backward while the head moves forward and eventually back. A car accident attorney in Tampa will tell you that this creates a whiplash effect, that is, the neck is whipped forward and backward. These forces put pressure on the muscles and ligaments and result in tears and damage. That's why an accident lawyer Tampa expects that in rear end collisions, it's generally the neck of the Tampa car accident victim that is injured and not the lower back. For the lower back to be injured, it would take a significant amount of force to create the lower back injury.

Tampa auto accident attorneys also notice that if their client's car is in the middle of a Tampa car accident, the risk of injury is significantly greater even in low impact car accidents. The reason that's true is that as the head accelerates forward the impact with the car in front causes the head to move back even more quickly, heightening the entire whiplash process.

An accident attorney in Tampa will also share with their client the importance of seeking medical treatment immediately after a low impact accident. Although the client might not initially believe there was significant damage to their neck in a rear end collision that did not have significant impact and / or where there is little damage, it might take days for the effects of millions of microtears to be felt. The sooner these microtears can be treated the more rapidly these problems can be corrected. A Tampa car accident lawyer will also advise that getting the injury medically documented can be particularly important in low impact accidents so that an insurance company can't later claim that if the low impact had caused any problems, that it would have been felt earlier.

To contact Dale Appell, an auto accident lawyer in Tampa serving all surrounding cities such as Clearwater, St Petersburg, and Sarasota, please call or e-mail our law firm today.