Helping avoid neck injury

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), Jan 12, 2007

Byline: By Jackie Violet

For the second year running, Swedish premium car-maker Saab, has been commended by the independently-operated Thatcham Motor Insurance Repair Centre for the effectiveness of its "active head restraints" in reducing neck injury.

I know only too well how important such a safety feature is, having suffered horrendous whiplash injuries in an accident.

The Saab 9-5 pioneered the use of the restraints back in 1996. Since then, the patented technology has been fitted, as standard, to both front seats of all Saab models sold in the UK.

Independent crash investigation ratings from around the world have shown the restraints reduce serious neck injury to front-seat occupants in the event of rear-end collisions by as much as 75% compared with cars not fitted with the technology.

This will be music to the ears of the 250,000 annually reported cases by Britain's insurers of drivers involved in rear-end shunts and suffering from whiplash, some with debilitating long-term effects.

The head restraint is activated in a rear-end impact as soon as the occupant's lower back is pressed into the seatback. It is connected by a linkage to a pressure plate in the backrest of the seat. Inertia forces the occupant's body into the backrest against the pressure plate, which triggers a mechanism to push the head restraint upwards and forwards, catching the head and helping to minimise neck movement. This helps prevent neck injury by reducing the amount of head movement relative to the torso.

The system is entirely mechanical, and after activation the head restraint automatically springs back to its passive position, ready for future use.