Originally Posted by Driz
Pickups. They all have a glass jaw! People think they are some form of protection because they're bigger but they'll kill you faster than most cars and they love to roll as much as an itchy horse.
That's complete nonsense.
I hit a 14-point buck dead-centre in our '19 RAM coming back from the cottage on a back road at ~90Km/h. If it had been my sister in her BMW, she'd have been dead. Not sure how the Jeep would have handled it. The height of the truck was the saving grace there. I then ran OVER the deer, due to the weight of the boat on the back. I still drove the truck home, still towing the boat.
Using your anecdote here, a group of kids years back were racing in a Civic and came around a curve into the oncoming lane directly at a family in an F-250. The (stock height) F-250 drove over the Civic, killing everybody inside. The folks in the truck were fine, albeit I'm sure scarred for life. We had a similar incident down east with an SUV (think it was an Explorer) and a Cavalier, which went into the oncoming lane and the SUV went up onto and through the cabin of the car, killing and dismembering the occupants.
When we had our 2002 Expedition, I was stopped behind a bus and saw a Caravan SAILING down the hill, the old boy at the wheel not paying attention. He had about 20ft to stop when he realized that nobody in front of him was moving and plowed into the back of the big SUV. There was a 2nd hit as the vehicle behind him, I believe a Civic, plowed into him. I had let off the brakes a tad, trying to buffer the impact as I watched the whole thing unfold in my rear view. Van missed the bumper of the Expedition because of the front-end diving, and plowed clear into my hitch assembly, which went through the front of it. Expedition didn't even have a scratch. The Civic jumped the rear bumper of the van and went through the gate, ending up in the back of it. I had no damage.
Gauging the crash worthiness of an entire vehicle category based on what seems like a single anecdote seems more than a bit silly. Vehicle mass, point of impact, type of impact...etc all play a role.