Just thought I’d jump on the Toyota recall bandwagon and post a little something on acceleration/deceleration injuries.

First, a little about the news topic. Toyota has been dealing with recalls for several models of their 2009 and 2010 line of vehicles. We first heard of this issue several months ago. We have seen and heard stories of families being devastated when loved ones are killed by their own cars. At first, Toyota had claimed that the floor mats were the problem – that they got in the way of the gas pedal.  The problem; however,  lies in the computer mechanism of the vehicle, causing it to accelerate out of control. Drivers then get into accidents, some of which have horrific outcomes. Toyota’s most recent recall announcement came just this past week. Here’s the information directly from Toyota’s Press Room.

Take a look at this interesting video from Consumer Reports on how to stop your out-of-control Toyota.

So what happens when your car is accelerating out of control and you hit another object?
Your body is stationary within the vehicle before impact, and then accelerates once the vehicle comes to an abrupt stop, but your body lags behind a little bit compared to the vehicle.  The structures within your body also go through the same acceleration-deceleration motion, but they too lag behind the framework of your body, thus causing a shearing force that disrupts various tissues.  Two of the most susceptible structures are the brain and cervical spine.  The Johns Hopkins web site has a brief overview of whiplash, one of the commonest injuries after acceleration-deceleration, which involves the cervical spine.  There is also a great narration of what happens to the brain during a car accident on You Tube.  This is called diffuse axonal injury – similar to what happens in shaken baby syndrome.

Tags: injuries/trauma

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 8:50 pm and is filed under In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.