If you own a ranger rover

If they'd suffered a medical episode in a Vauxhall Corsa would they have caused anything like as much damage?
Probably YES. There is of course a lot of LUCK involved for exactly WHERE a person is struck, which is a mater of a split second.

[Rolls eyes and prepares to explain laws of physics]
Force = Mass x Acceleration
The higher the mass, the more force on the victim's body.

Momentum = Mass x Velocity
The higher the mass, the further the vehicle will keep rolling.

Then there's the issue of bonnet height. A Ford Focus will hit a child around the waist, avoiding vital organs and putting the victim onto the bonnet of the car. A Range Rover will hit the child on the torso, crushing vital organs and sending the child underneath the car. I'll reattach the graphic from earlier:

@JacquesHarlow yes, the demand is high. Volvo no longer sells estate cars in the UK as the demand is for XC90 etc. Shame, I love a good solid estate car.

I drive a 4x4 mainly due to being off road a lot but one of the major reasons I’m tempted to drive it more is not for the driving position (and in the case of my vehicle, not the prestige!) but because its wheels go straight over the top of all the pot holes. That has to now be one of the reasons people like 4x4s (certainly if they live rurally).

Or driving normal cars which don't sit on stilts.

I drove an Audi A7 recently. Fantastic car in that it has a hatchback, a decent economical engine, and it's big enough to hold everything. It's not small - it's 5 metres long or so, but it's what cars used to be like before everyone bleated "but I have to be hiiiiggh upppp".

The funny thing was, I noticed being low down, how much the BMW X3 / Mercedes GLE / Audi Q / Range Rover types were beaming their lights directly into my rear view mirror, haha!

It really is an arms race now in terms of people wanting to sit higher up to avoid the glare, to 'see ahead' etc.

I don't see how anyone can convince buyers otherwise, they love this shit.

I don’t particularly enjoy night driving these days as I also struggle with bright lights (recent eye tests, new glasses so it’s not that). What I notice about the very bright headlights is that they are much easier to cope with if you are driving a 4x4 which I am driving 50% of the time. When I am driving a smaller car (in my case an A3 with bright headlights itself) I find sitting a bit lower means I am much more easily dazzled as the lights from any 4x4 (or taller vehicle that happens to have the very bright lights) hits me straight on.

I have nothing against 4x4s as such but I do think if it’s your usual vehicle you may not realise what a struggle it is for people driving older and/or smaller cars.

Goodness.

Are you saying you don't notice a difference between a SUV and a saloon coming towards you at night?

Really?? Strict regulations about headlights?

Yes.

Really?? Strict regulations about headlights? That's why thousands of people are asking for the blinding bloody things to be outlawed. they are horrific. I know this isn't unique to RRs but all of the big tanks have lights that are so incredibly dangerous, I absolutely hate driving at night

There are extremely strict regulations regarding headlight brightness, direction, throw distance, beam pattern, etc.

A very good reason for the EU to INSIST that UK cars DO have the correct beam limiters/deflectors fitted when you hooligans come on holiday and that if you are staying longer that they are changed correctly for driving on the Right. This is one thing that needed changing on my '90' which fortunately would have not been too expensive and easy enough to fit new sealed headlights myself.

There are extremely strict regulations regarding headlight brightness, direction, throw distance, beam pattern, etc.

RRs, etc. are no worse than any other new car with HID or LED lights. Even cheap new cars have those.

The issue comes from being in a car which is 'outgunned' by headlights in the opposing direction. If you're driving a car with halogens or older type xenons your eyes are accustomed to the relatively low output of those and a new car coming towards you massively overpowers them and hence you are dazzled.

You realize that over-powerful dazzling headlights are yet another safety issue being caused by massive cars of this type?

Oui, mais NON!
There are plenty of other cars with very bright headlights but the problem is being able to see where you are going and to be able to see obstructions/pedestrians. There is also another problem with 'colour temperature' where the super bright are monochromatic compared to old incandescent bulbs so some colours of 'objects' are less visible somewhat similar to the oild sodium streetlights where colours of clothing appear different or in different ratios to sunlight. The headlights on my '90' were pitifully dim so I in turn drove more slowly. Badly directed and often failed headlights are not restricted to any make or type. Remember 'the loose nut behind the wheel' is ALWAYS to blame.

You realize that over-powerful dazzling headlights are yet another safety issue being caused by massive cars of this type?

I’m laughing my head off at the idea that “RRs are heavily taxed anyway!” By which standards and in comparison to which countries?

This does not cover RRs per se, but the UK is remarkable for how little it taxes huge cars.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/01/uk-tax-polluting-suv-green-thinktank-environment

https://twitter.com/transenv_UK/status/1763486578960208236 See this Twitter thread for more details.

Notice the use of phrases like “tax haven for polluting SUVs” and “The UK is dire when looking at large, luxury, high-polluting cars.”

It wouldn’t matter so much, perhaps, if the UK was like America - an unsentimental and thinly populated country that was prepared to bulldoze its cities in the post-war period and rebuild them around cars (huge numbers of increasingly enormous cars). They ripped up old, pretty city centers and replaced with enormous roads and huge parking lots, and huge sprawling suburbs with great big roads and massive driveways to accommodate multiple big cars per household, causing cities to sprawl to gigantic all-American sizes.

In the UK, people “won’t” do this, and insist on girdling their cities tightly with green belts to prevent sprawl, and want to maintain old pretty buildings and townscapes full of charming narrow streets lined with Victorian terraces etc.

The result is the modern day UK - way too many increasingly massive cars all jam-packed, somehow, into cities that are simply not able to contain them comfortably, and resulting in far too much car grinding away over far too little road space. Hence, potholes, congestion, lost productivity, knackered pavements, and neighbors having turf wars over parking.

One thing the UK could do now, at the very least, is start squeezing the drivers of massive cars. But politicians are too cowardly, and most Brits would rather whine about the situation in their cities than risk doing something about it.

Note that the danger isn’t because of driving style.
Oh contraire. when driving you have to assume that something could dart out and keep your speed and vigilance such that you CAN stop if necessary. You can only drive as fast as allows you to stop safely in the distance you can see properly in front of you which if taken to it's extreme means that a lot of night driving over say 50MPH should be ruled out on unlit roads because headlights are not usually powerful enough to give good view at the required distance. This was a view expressed by the police in 1982 in relation to high speed persuits. There are some quite subtle lines in the Highway Code that most chose to ignore.

If they'd suffered a medical episode in a Vauxhall Corsa would they have caused anything like as much damage?
Probably YES. There is of course a lot of LUCK involved for exactly WHERE a person is struck, which is a mater of a split second.
Environmentally friendly is anothe myth. All human activity is detrimental to the planet so it is simply a mattrer of trying to do the least damage, for which my 32 year old Golf and 21 year old Freelander, driven reasonably are better than buying new cars because you want one:. I only gave up my LandRover '90' because it was too expensive to get it through proper registration in Europe which would not have been a problem if some silly buggers hadn't voted to leave the EU. I was very happy trundling around at 80K/h (50mph) which is largely the national open road limit in France. MOT in UK would have allowed me to keep it and after 34 years I was rather attached to it, having replaced the chassis myself.

Couldn't agree more @JustKeepSwimmingJust , it's factual.

The problem is that the people who are wedded to these things, are able to find any blind justification as to why it is the only car they can ever have.

There's no arguing with these folk. Purchase power + convenience = more important than society.

Everyone falls over themselves to claim they're not fashion victims, yet someone once told me here on MN that they could never buy my estate car because "estates are old fashioned and driven by old men".

Note that the danger isn’t because of driving style. It’s because the shape and weight means if a child darts in front of you, or you have a medical episode, you are far more likely to kill than if you had seen in a standard car.

I dislike all SUVs, increasing with size. They increase the danger to pedestrians because of the high bonnets (all standard cars are designed to minimise the risk of death to pedestrians) and increase the amount of land needed to park each car.

But mostly the danger thing. If you drive one of those to school or child clubs, I am most definitely judging you for increasing the risk to your children’s friends.

If they'd suffered a medical episode in a Vauxhall Corsa would they have caused anything like as much damage?

We’ve got 2. No finance on either but they’re a few years old.
One we’re selling as insurance has gone ridiculous. Not sure what other car to go for as we’ve a large family, too many dogs, live rurally, tow and like something comfortable for long drives. Perhaps a Volvo.

Maybe there's confirmation bias when one sees a BMW failing to indicate and says "typical" but doesn't blink if a VW does the same. Or maybe the sort of people who buy VWs genuinely are more considerate drivers. I've not got a clue which is the case.

There are certainly correlations between the sort of car that someone buys and the sort of person they are. This American experiment noted that pickup truck and SUV drivers were much more likely to intentionally hit animals in the road than people driving normal cars:

No one is jealous. If I wanted one I would get one. I prefer however to get to work in an environmentally friendly way, and doing so puts me in the class of "vulnerable road user", so I have a particular interest in safety.

Evoque are 20cm less annoying tbf

I'm going to be honest. They scare me. The majority do drive right up behind me and try to intimidate me, they do pull out in front with barely any time to do it, in case they have to be 'stuck behind' a tiny car (the SHAME), and they do speed on fast roads which is bloody dangerous.
Just drive normally and be respectful instead of thinking you're some kind of superior being.

I saved for a long time to be able to buy my evoque outright. It's mine. Iv had it a month and I love it. I don't speed anywhere and only place I park it is my small office car park, outside my house or next to my caravan.

Funny though, previously to having this one I drove a 2010 Peugeot 107, so I'd like to know when the transformation between perfectly fine nice small car driver into a speeding, bad parking arsehole who ploughs over old people and endangers kids occurred. I didn't feel it so perhaps it was overnight!