German, 12 pages, 11 figures, 11 references
Keywords: neck injuries; low speed frontal impacts; rear end impact; oblique sitting position; head rotation

The number of whiplash injuries after lateral impacts has been rising for several years. Statistics prove that only 20-30% of all whiplash injuries stem from rear impacts. This is mainly due to the higher numbers of front and lateral collisions in general. Moreover, read-end collisions nearly always involve a vehicle damaged at the front. A twisted posture of the head is also claimed by some to have contributed to the whiplash injury. The paper presents the results of numerous collision experiments. These showed that the relative turning angles between head and T1 reach values similar to those occurring in rear-end collisions. The measured acceleration of the heads in the rear-end collisions was higher. Yet head acceleration when rebounding was lower than in front impacts.
In the rear-end collision experiments, the twisted posture of the head had no significant influence on motion kinematics. It can be concluded that the inertia forces have to apply nearly centrically, despite the twisted posture of the head, as no additional rotation of the head is induced. Finally, it can be reported that none of the test persons claimed any disorders after the tests.