Although There Is Little Or Visible Damage To My Vehicle, I Was Severely Injured
At the experienced Philadelphia car accident law firm of Reiff and Bily often we are contacted by clients who are involved in car accidents where there is no or little visible damage to the involved vehicles yet they claim and are objectively found to have significant injuries. Of course, the insurance companies or defense counsel almost always claim that there was insufficient force in the accident to generate the injury causing mechanism and that our client is looking to “wrongfully” enrich their life following the yellow brick road to riches and the courtroom by exaggerating their injuries.
If the injury is significant, the experienced car accident lawyers at Reiff and Bily will work with investigators and experts to determine the magnitude of the collision by inspecting the bumper surface for signs of permanent deformation, as well as the bumper isolators for signs of sudden compression. Research has revealed that bumper isolators which are fluid and gas filled shock absorbers designed to provide vehicle damage from collision with barriers or other vehicles can set the threshold of visible vehicular damage at delta V speed changes ranging from 8.1 to 12.4 mph in modern cars yet below this threshold the occupant can be exposed to significant acceleration pulses. According to research, the reported threshold for soft tissue injury of the neck in a healthy adult male is a delta V of approximately 5 mph. Therefore, modern passenger vehicles can crash at nearly twice the injury threshold yet appear undamaged. A technical paper was published entitled “Automobile Bumper Behavior And Low Speed Impacts” and reported on impact testing which indicated vehicles of polyurethane covered bumpers could sustain impact speed changes up to 13.7 kph without any sign of permanent deformation.
If you were involved in a car accident where there was minimal or no damage to the rear bumper yet have sustained a significant and objectively defined injury, it is important to contact an experienced car accident lawyer familiar with the phenomena of minimal impact cases who can address this issue with an expert to generate a quantitative analysis in order to determine whether the force of your accident was sufficient to generate your injury. For a free no obligation consultation, please contact the experienced Philadelphia car accident lawyers at Reiff and Bily at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.
