Alright folks, gird your loins, we’re going to talk about an exceedingly exciting topic today, and that topic is headrests. We’ve written about it before, but it bears repeating — headrests aren’t just there for comfort or for you to bang your head against when you’re stuck in rush hour traffic on the 405, they’re actually a hugely important part of your car’s safety systems. We may colloquially call them headrests, but they’re more accurately called head restraints, and no, they don’t automatically make you a part of the kink community, but they do serve a very important function: preventing whiplash injuries in the event of a car crash.
I’m an automotive safety nerd, so this kind of thing has always been at the front of my mind, but I understand that the average driver thinks more about their daily comfort than they do their safety in the event of a crash. I spoke with Nissan seating engineer Justin Sammons about three of the most important things that every driver should know about their car’s headrests. Here’s what he said.
The head restraint is a critical part of your car’s safety structure
Having a slab of foam looming a couple centimeters behind your skull at all times isn’t always the most comfortable thing in the world. This is especially the case for folks like me with a lot of hair, which is often tied back in a ponytail, or freshly styled and in peril of developing a flat spot. Sammons says it’s a mistake to view your headrest as anything other than a safety device.
Head restraints are designed to prevent occupants from whiplash injuries in the event of a rear-end collision. When someone slams into the back of your car, your body wants to stay stationary, but the car you’re in suddenly accelerates with several times the force of gravity depending on the severity of the impact. Since the rest of the seat is designed to cradle your body when this happens, your big head whips backward and forward at a high velocity, and the head restraint catches your cranium like a baseball catcher’s mitt, minimizing the effect on your cervical spine.
Don’t remove your headrest or flip it around
Automakers spend a lot of time and resources designing seats that strike a good balance between comfort and safety, and a fair amount of progress has been achieved in a relatively short amount of time. Federal regulations have only mandated that all cars, trucks, and SUVs have head restraints for the front outboard seats since 1991, and they have become much more effective at mitigating whiplash injuries since then.
Some people flip their headrest around or remove it entirely in order to be more comfortable in the driver’s seat, but that’s a bad idea according to Sammons. He said, “it doesn’t even take much for occupant posture to negatively impact seat performance, let alone removing or flipping the head restraints.”
Some headrests are angled toward the occupants’ heads, which isn’t always the most comfortable, but they are always designed with occupant safety at the forefront. That forward tilt can allow the seat or headrest to flex slightly as the occupants bodies are thrust rearward in the event of a crash. Another important consideration is how the head restraint is adjusted.
Adjust the head restraint so its internal frame is at least as high as your ears
It might seem like the ideal position for a head restraint is the most comfortable, but that’s not the only criteria that you should consider. You may think that your headrest is solely made up of foam and fabric or leather, but it, like the rest of the seat, has a metal frame that gives it a sturdy structure. You should be able to identify where the metal frame inside your car’s headrest is by squeezing it and feeling for it. Sammons says it’s important to have the metal frame of the headrest at least as high as the top of your ears.
If you’re on the shorter side this won’t likely be an issue for you, but if you’re tall or happen to have a long torso, this is a good guide for how to adjust your headrest to keep you as safe as possible. Sammons says that the most important thing for people to understand is that the headrest is an integral part of your car’s safety structure, and it’s designed to keep your body safe in the event of a crash. Rear-end collisions are some of the most common collisions on American roads, and there isn’t much that can be done to avoid being rear-ended in many cases, so it’s best to properly adjust your headrest and leave it there.
