I couldn't think of where to put this thread, so I went for Climate Change.
I read the above mumsnet article. Safety is raised as a legitimate point, but in the recommendations section, 3 of the 4 recommendations are SUVs and only 1 is a normal car.
SUVs are hazardous and dangerous, and it is wrong to recommend SUVs over small cars and normal cars.
Some facts about SUVs:
- SUVs consume more fuel than smaller cars and emit more fumes. Air pollution kills huge numbers of people every year.
- Because SUVs are so large, visibility of the road and ground immediately around the SUV is very poor. This makes SUVs particularly hazardous near schools, where it's difficult to spot school children close to the car (contrary to popular belief, children are at most risk travelling to school when they are on foot, not when they are inside a car).
- The widespread uptake of SUVs promotes American-style urban planning in the UK. American urban areas are not only ugly, but they are also highly dangerous and unpleasant for pedestrians.
- As SUVs are larger vehicles, they collide with more force than normal cars. This is school-level physics, Force = mass * acceleration. SUVs therefore crash with a lot more force than normal cars, and crashes involving SUVs are particularly devastating.
- There is no firm evidence to support the widespread urban legend that the occupants of SUVs are safer than the occupants of normal cars.
My recommendation to any prospective car buyer is to buy a small car or a normal car with a good safety record, and avoid putting another ugly and awful SUV on British roads.