[jdietrich]

Heavier vehicles carry more kinetic energy and do more damage in a crash; taller vehicles are more likely to cause severe injuries to pedestrians.

Crossover SUVs are essentially antisocial - they confer no practical benefit to the driver over a sedan or a wagon, but create considerable additional externalities.

[Wistar]

The X6 has super-heavy steering, terrible visibility in any direction other than forward, has crappy rear seat space and headroom and laughable cargo space, has left me stranded twice, is kind of weird looking and yet is an unabashedly aggressive joy to drive, especially the 5.0 or X6 M although the 3.0L is no slouch. I love the thing. It is a horrible idea raised to near-perfection.

[perl4ever]

The difference in height between a wagon and a crossover is about two inches, using the Subaru Outback/Forester as an example pair. And the ground clearance is quite likely the same, which means the difference in the height of the CG is probably in between.

To me, it seems reasonable to question whether an inch more or less does in fact make a "considerable" difference or whether this is another moral condemnation of something trivial.

It's gotten really irritating to me the way people, not just you, continually make remarks that assume quantitative evidence for something, and throw in the word "externalities" as though that proves a point.

Externalities are everywhere, but it's not reasonable to use them as an all purpose short circuit for everything. And they are finite. People treat "externalities" as arbitrarily large, as though that was inherent in what they are. That is, conversationally, the purpose the term now serves.