Objectives: To compare health status, family and occupational impact and quality of life one year after an accident between casualties with whiplash versus other mild injuries, and to explore the relation between initial injury (whiplash vs. other) and quality of life. Design: Prospective cohort study. Subjects: The study used data from the ESPARR cohort (a representative cohort of road accident casualties) and included 173 casualties with “pure” whiplash and a population of 207 casualties with other mild injuries (MAIS-1). Quality of life at 1-year follow-up was assessed on the WHOQoL-Bref questionnaire. Methods: Correlations between explanatory variables and quality of life were explored by Poisson regression to provide adjusted relative risks, with analysis of variance for the various quality of life scores explored. Results: One year post-accident, more whiplash than other casualties complained of non-recovery of health status (56% vs. 43%) and of occupational impact of pain (31% vs. 23%). Quality of life and post-traumatic stress disorder were similar in the two groups. Impaired quality of life did not correlate with whiplash when models were adjusted on sociodemographic variables and history of psychological distress. Whatever the initial lesion, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was a determining factor for poorer quality of life. Conclusions: Sociodemographic factors, pre-accident psychological history prior and post-traumatic stress disorder were the main factors influencing quality of life, rather than whether or not the injury was whiplash. PTSD may also be related to pain.