It is commonly used as a transition between shots, and can indicate the passage of time or a frenetic pace of action.
Much like the natural wipe, the whip pan, also known as the flash pan, offers a very convenient and visually interesting motivation to transition from one shot to another.
[1] This technique is used liberally by directors Anatole Litvak, Sam Raimi, Damien Chazelle, James Wan, Wes Anderson and Edgar Wright[citation needed].
It is also frequently seen in 1970s martial arts movies.
In Victor Lewis-Smith's satirical series TV Offal it was used frequently either as a means of transitioning between wildly different subjects, or as punctuation to a particularly scathing joke at someone's expense.