Gadgetory

ah yes whiplash it's actually called the neck strain or a neck sprain but it's one of the best known of the auto injuries often one of the most fraudulently claimed but it's a big business 8.8 billion dollars in insurance claims a year that's nearly as big a business as the NFL now the most obvious technology to prevent whiplash is the headrest but my Cougars are 67 it doesn't have headrests by 68 they were getting popular as an option by 69 required on new cars in the US what we're looking for our head restraints that catch the head quickly what we don't want is for the head to lag behind the body so that the neck has to do all the work of pulling the head along your neck wasn't built to do that and that's how whiplash injury can occur but headrests are pretty crude protection they basically stop you from going this way they do nothing for the forward motion or the side-to-side there is some racing technology that does a lot better job things like the hands technology the head and neck support that gets you from the back it tethers the helmet as well tries to immobilize the head and neck a little more after a couple of very recent very high-profile deaths on the track Simpson also has one called a hybrid that does a triangulation of tethers to even further limit movement in various directions but none of this is coming to production cars obviously now lateral motion in our cars on the road is addressed a little bit by things like center airbags now from General Motors that are in a few cars and the side curtain airbags and fill up that space and can stop your head from some lateral movement they help a little they're really about head impact now of course the airbag that's right in front of you does a lot to limit that forward movement but again it's largely an impact device more than a neck device put your head and neck are out there fairly exposed that's why it's good to know about the headrest restraint ratings on your car a lot of folks don't know about these but the IHS also rates those among their accident safety ratings go to the IHS rankings for a car you're considering dig down a little bit low on the page you'll find head restraint ratings they are not all created equal now most of us are not buying a new car anytime soon so you're stuck with the one you've got here's what you can do it pays to double check how you've got your headrest adjusted if you have them anyway first of all the top of the headrest should meet the top of your head you're tall like me that's never gonna happen so get it as far up as you can second you want the front of the headrest to be meeting the back of your head with as little space or none as possible a lot of cars have a movement or an adjustment there that'll move the headrest after four or just tilt the whole thing roll it forward figure out how yours works I bet you've never adjusted it on those criteria remember it's called a headrest that's not what it's for it's a neck restraint so make sure you got it set up right