It does. When your acceleration changes you feel it and if you don't you might get sick. If your acceleration is static there are no additional forces on you
Car sickness is very real though, only maybe not as much for the driver.
I never used to have it, but in modern cars where accelerations are much higher and you're much more disconnected from the outside in terms of how much you can see and hear, it's almost a certainty. This is especially true on the backseat where it can also get fairly claustrophobic.