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Head Injury

Every year, about two million people suffer a head injury of some type in the United States. A head injury can cause external injuries to the scalp or skull, or the head injury can cause internal injuries to the brain, including bruises, bleeding and concussions. Suffering a concussion is one of the most common, as well as least obvious, head injury accidents. Caused by auto accidents, sports injuries, falls, workplace accidents, assaults, gun wounds or other accidents, most people will suffer a head injury at least once in their life.

On March 30, 2005, a report written by Martha Bidez, Ph.D., of Bidez Associates and a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, showed automakers have misled government regulators and the public for years by claiming roof strength and head injury and neck injury in rollover crashes are unrelated. For years, some auto manufacturers have claimed head injury and neck injury is suffered in rollover crashes when people dive into the roofs of their vehicles, not because of roof crush.

Bidez sent her report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which was particularly relevant because the agency was about to propose a new roof strength standard. Auto safety experts, who did not expect the proposal to be a meaningful change because for years the agency had repeatedly promised to update the original 1971 standard, have criticized NHTSA officials for failing to issue a rule. In Bidez’s report, she analyzed Ford’s own tests to show roof crush does, despite what many auto manufacturers have argued, occur prior to injurious neck loads during rollovers, showing that improving a vehicle’s resistance to roof crush would prevent catastrophic head injury, neck injury, spinal cord injury and deaths.

Although rollover crashes account for just three percent of vehicle crashes, the crashes are responsible for one third of all crash fatalities. Automakers have falsely claimed roof strength and head injury because of rollover crashes are unrelated to protect themselves from liability in lawsuits filed by families of rollover crash victims, as well as to resist government requirements for stronger roofs on vehicles.

A traumatic brain injury accounts for an estimated 34 percent of all injury deaths in the United States, which is a head injury that insults the brain when an impact like a car accident occurs. Even though not all traumatic brain injuries are visible, the long-term effects can be devastating – affecting physical, emotional, intellectual and social aspects depending on what area(s) of the brain are injured. A severe head injury, traumatic brain injury due to car accidents has declined between 1984 to 1992, but the popularity of SUV vehicles and its propensity to rollover has been a concerning source of head injury and death.

Increasing safety standards on vehicles, especially considering the availability of cost effective options like strengthening roofs, side head air bags, safety glass and pretensioned belts, are able to save lives. According to Joan Claybrook, the president of consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, “for automakers to claim that head injuries are the fault of people ‘diving’ into the roofs of their cars is ludicrous.”

A head injury can be an emotional and financial strain, creating high medical burdens and permanently altering a person’s mental capabilities.

Product Liability Breaking News

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Ford Motor Co. recalled nearly 1.2 million diesel trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles on Thursday over a faulty engine sensor that could cause the vehicles to stall suddenly and possibly crash.

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"Defective Ford Explorer Car Seat Causes Woman's Injury"

Donna Grimes was driving her Ford Explorer that day in 2001, waiting to make a left turn on a street in Deerfield Beach, Florida. A man driving a Toyota Solara plowed into the back of her car at 60 mph, and as her car seat collapsed, she was catapulted...

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