It gets their attention when fucks won't get out of the left lane to tailgate them and fill their rear view mirror if it's a small car. Not that I ever do it.
We bought one of our site supers a fully loaded Canyon or Colorado or whatever (the GM one). He loves it. He doesn't really haul much material for work, and for personal use he just got rid of a big trailer so he didn't need a big diesel anymore. Sure the seats in the back aren't as spacious as they are in a full size truck, but how often are you actually using them with two adults back there? It's way better on gas, easier to park because it's 6 inches narrower and a foot or two shorter than the equivalent Sierra, and is actually a decent looking truck (he picked a horrid color and box cover and ruined it, though). The only downside is that you don't really save a ton of money moving from a Sierra to a Colorado, if they're fairly equivalent trim wise. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was less of a savings than expected.
Usually I hear that from women. My wife went from her massive Dodge (Full max cab + 8 foot bed.) To a juke. Was getting pissed about being cut off and a host of perceived slights. I've driven with her, just bad driver.
Well, physics are still physics, if a 6000lb escalade hits your 2600lb neon, it's going to be proportionally worse than if you were also driving a 6000lb escalade. Thats just life. Yes the cars are pretty safe but physics gonna physics.
Depends on how the manufacturers design their cars, less to do with total weight and more to do with crumple zones and shit. Sure your car might get more fucked in the accident but you'll walk away from it unscathed. Hondas and Toyota just fold up around the cabin buy the cabin is fine. I prefer BMW and Volvos for their design, they use a lot of high strength metals that make the cars tanks.
While SUVs do tend to be safer it doesn't appear to be nearly as wildly disproportionate as you may think. The only good site I can find with confidence scores is the following. Some of the "Most Deaths / Least Deaths" is a bit misleading since they don't appear to account for the number of vehicles on the road. So naturally a rarer car will have fewer deaths than a common car.
Yeah thats what I was getting at. In a vacuum and acting like this is the 1960's where cars are made of immovable steel yeah the higher weight car will win out over the lower weight car. But these days crash engineering physics is so good that even a smaller car can be relatively safe. Physics will always physics and that is what the crash engineers manipulate to maximize safety.
All cars on the road these days, if recently made are very safe as compared to the past. But Cad is right about mass/size. Two pickups getting in to an accident with each other is likely to result in similar injuries to both occupants as two small cars in an accident with each other. But in the case of a pickup getting in to an accident with a small car, the people in the small car are more likely to have serious injuries or to be killed than someone in the truck. I read an article recently that was about some research demonstrating that pretty conclusively. I'll see if I can find it.
Not sure how much space you need exactly. Sounds like a Forester. Get the 2.0XT if you go that route. Should be able to get a premium for $27,000.
Try being a Canadian that moved to Texas. Everybody AND their mom drives a fucking jacked up pickup. There's a chick at work that is probably barely a 100lbs wet, and she drives an F-250 with the double wheels at the rear. They all drive like they fucking own the road, speed, and change lanes waayy too fast for a vehicle of that height. They also make sure to park in the "compact car" spots as a big "hi I'm a jackoff" notice to other drivers. I really don't get it though.. I had to drive one for a few weeks when I moved here and I fail to see what is enjoyable about them. They aren't fast, corner like shit, handle like shit, park like shit, and eat gas like it's going out of style. The only positive is that you can see the road in front of you because all the other jackoffs are also driving pickups. I just don't get the allure unless you're a gardener, work in construction, or throw a dead deer in the back a few times a year.. But most of these "Texas edition" and "King Ranch edition" super-pickups I see are immaculate and probably haven't seen anything more than a few bags from Whole Foods in the back.
You left off ability to mount a grill guard. Llano county in the hill country has the most deer to vehicle colissions per county in the entire country. I swear to god after season 1/2 get on one side, and 1/2 get on the other side of the road. Then they run across and swap stories of who made it thru season only to get killed by a vehicle.
I drive an LR4. (Discovery 4 in Europe)
The true Discovery (LR5) replacement is due as a 2017 model. What I am most interested in is the Defender replacement that is coming after the Discovery. We should see its return for US shores, finally.