but now we're putting people in the position where if you're not driving SUV and you're in a collision with an SUV you come off worse. so your option to remain safe is to buy an SUV so that if you hit/get hit another SUV or you hit/gethit another vehicle you end up in a better position
I don’t think that’s true and it’s possible to design small cars to fare well. I had an old Saab 9-3 that was t-boned by a Chevy Avalanche at about 40 mph.
Both vehicles were totaled. My passengers had some lacerations from shattered glass. The avalanche people were taken away in an ambulance. I was fine.
Small cars can be designed quite robustly to withstand these huge trucks hitting them. Not all though.
I think the current tesla sedans do quite well with large vehicle impact testing.
It’s not so much about the design than the impression. Lots of people don’t like driving and would rather a bigger car because they feel unsafe next to those other giant cars. Nothing to do with actual danger, just perception.
I think people like excuses to drive SUVs. I had a friend who drove an SUV and talked about the safety and space needs. But the SUV had worse safety and space than many sedans, wagons, and hatchbacks. I always thought it curious about why they would cover up whatever the reason was for driving an SUV but was never able to talk about it because they got deflective and defensive.
Modern safety features certainly help, but ultimately physics is still physics.
There can also be serious problems when modern vehicles have collisions with older vehicles that don't have those safety features, for similar reasons.
The downside is that an SUV flips over without any effort. Especially with the high greenhouses and unavoidable sunroofs nowadays. I've seen SUVs flip over just from being rear-ended.
Notice how one of the first marketing points of this new monstrosity is "passenger safety". Because the safety of the passengers in a vehicle the size of a truck with the performance of a sports car is really important. Given the poor standard of driver training it's going to be suicide to drive smaller car soon, let alone be on a bicycle or walking.
