I have had many people (probably in the thousands) come to me over my thirty years of practicing law and describe an amazing variety of collisions with vehicles large and small. They have described a plethora of different types of motor vehicle collisions. Although collisions between large vehicles and small vehicles often results in greater injuries for the people in the smaller vehicles, this is not always the case. The reality is that it very much depends on the body and life that you bring to that moment in time.
If you have had prior injuries to your spine, there is a greater likelihood of further injury. Also, a significant factor, in my experience, seems to be whether the driver had his/her head turned (typically as they were merging or yielding) at the time of impact from the rear. I have seen horrific pictures of cars squashed to almost nothing and yet the client recovered from their injuries in a few months. But I have also seen accidents with no visual damage to either vehicle and the client suffered with chronic pain for years after the accident. The insurers will often try to argue that if you were hit by a smaller vehicle and you were in a bigger vehicle that you ought not to have been injured (or injured as much). These sorts of arguments have not been accepted by our courts and ultimately if you have been injured in the accident, it doesn’t matter what type of vehicle you were driving in nor what kind of vehicle the at-fault driver was in. The type of vehicle and the amount of damage, are only some of the facts that the court will take into account when assessing the value of your claim.