According to data from the registry maintained by the Danish National Health Service (Sundhedsstyrelsen) a little more than 200 persons are hospitalized annually in Denmark because of cervical spine injuries sustained in road traffic accidents. Experiences from the Odense University Hospital show that not all injuries are reported to the national registry. According to the hospital registrations an estimate of 385 road traffic accident victims with cervical spine lesions should be hospitalized in Denmark annually and another 1050 should be treated as outpatients. 67.1% of the victims were front-seat car riders. The role of the classical whiplash injury is stressed by the fact that 46.5% of the patients with cervical spine lesions had been involved in rear-end collisions in opposition to 5.2% of the persons injured in all registered car collisions in Denmark in 1979.

Although most injuries to the neck were graded as AIS 1 a follow- up investigation showed that even patients with this lesion only had long lasting complaints.