Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I often think about the late Model Civic an old lady was driving when she decided to hit my E-150 while I was stopped at a stop sign allowing a mother and child to cross a normally quiet intersection. Her Civic had a few grand in damage, busted radiator, and needed to be towed. I had a scatch under the rear bumper. Bigger was better in this case.
And if it had been a tractor trailer that hit your E-150, you would likely not be around to post this while the tractor trailer would have had the same scratch on his bumper and the same rationale would have applied. Fortunately that wasn't the case!
FWIW, even if I could get around the claustrophobia I'd feel in something the size of the car pictured in this thread, I wouldn't feel safe in it. As I've said of the Smart Car: sitting in something that small would make me feel like the proverbial hockey puck just waiting for the slapshot.
On the other hand, that needs to - for me - be tempered by the realization that once I've found something with enough room to avoid any claustrophobic like feelings and have reasonable everyday utility, gas prices put an opposing pressure that puts my own comfortable equilibrium in the size car I own now and will continue to seek in the future.
Even though it is by no measure 'large,' and also rides pretty low (something I actually prefer), I don't feel unsafe in it. Nor do the occasional driver in much a larger vehicle who tries to use that size as intimidation (by tailgating and other aggressive practices) have any effect on me.
Its modest size, 3 point belts, dual airbags, and engineered crumple zones provide all I require on the safety side. The rest has more to do with the driver than what he's driving, and no amount of size and weight can compensate for poor and unsafe driving practices. I think some even opt for larger and heavier not out of any kind of utility, but solely or primarily to protect themselves from their own poor driving; either that or that extra size and weight leads them to push the envelope a lot further than they should, and much further than someone who isn't using this as their main criteria for vehicle selection.
(note: above comments not directed at you personally Frank)
-Spyder
