Since the reform of the Spanish motor injury scale, minor neck injuries are only compensated where the accident was capable of producing them. Insurers almost always deny it with a standard report; the answer has to be technical too.
Biomechanics puts numbers where there was argument: how much energy each vehicle absorbed, what change in velocity the occupants underwent, and whether that magnitude is consistent with the injury diagnosed.
Cases I take
- Whiplash and low-speed rear-end collisions.
- Compatibility between the accident mechanism and the injury claimed.
- Replies to the insurer's biomechanical report refusing compensation.
- Injuries to rear occupants, to children in restraint systems and to pregnant women.
- Seat belt use or non-use, and its influence on the injuries.
- Pedestrians struck and motorcycle or bicycle accidents: body kinematics and injuries.
What I need from you
- Police report and accident statement, with the description of the impact.
- Photographs of the damage to both vehicles and an itemised repair estimate.
- Medical reports: emergency department, first treatment, progress and discharge.
- Previous clinical history, where prior conditions are in dispute.
- Vehicle data: mass, type and, where available, the EDR record.
- The opposing side's biomechanical report, if there is one.
What the law says
- Art. 135 of the consolidated Motor Liability and Insurance Act: causation criteria for minor spinal trauma, including the intensity criterion.
- Act 35/2015: the Spanish compensation scale for road traffic injuries.
- Art. 7 of the same consolidated Act: the insurer's duty to make a reasoned offer.
- Scientific literature on acceleration thresholds and neck injury, cited with its source.
What you get
- Impact energy and the occupants' estimated change in velocity, with its margin.
- Analysis of the injury mechanism: what movement the body underwent, and in what direction.
- Whether or not that mechanism is consistent with the injury diagnosed.
- A critical review of the insurer's report, with its methodological errors where they exist.
- Careful conclusions: what biomechanics can state and what it cannot.
- Ratification and defence of the report in the courtroom.
Frequently asked questions
What is the intensity criterion?
It is one of the four criteria in art. 135 for compensating minor neck trauma: that the intensity of the accident was capable of producing the injury. The other three are exclusion, chronology and topography. The biomechanical report deals precisely with intensity.
Can a light impact cause an injury?
It can, and it can equally fail to. It depends on the masses involved, the stiffness of the structure struck, the occupant's position, their age and their medical history. That is why the conclusion comes with a margin rather than as absolute certainty.
Is it any use against the insurer's report?
That is what it is for. Many insurer reports apply a fixed speed threshold without engaging with the actual case. A report that calculates from the real damage to both vehicles and from the clinical data usually dismantles that generalisation.
Tell me about your case
Free feasibility study and a fixed written quote. I reply within 24-48 working hours.
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