[grog454]

> Even an experienced driver can appreciate not having the view completely obstructed by...

Couldn't agree more. I have ~50 hours of seat time driving a high performance mid engine car on a track but in any amount of traffic I prefer my truck. Better visibility, and (imo) better safety due to weight.

It's rarely brought up but even an elementary understanding of physics makes it obvious that less massive things are more fragile and susceptible to deformation than more massive things, all else being equal. Sadly that last point involves a zero sum game: the safer a heavier vehicle is to its occupant the more dangerous it is to others. Even more sadly its a game many people are forced to play.

[pandaman]

One needs to be careful when analyzing safety. NHSTA and similar orgs abroad have conditioned people to only think of safety as the chances of survival in a collision but if you were to look at the actual traffic fatalities [1] you could easily find that some cars with higher fatality stats have also a higher "safety star" rating and vice versa. Likewise, some heavy trucks score higher fatalities than lighter cars. It might be that some cars are better at avoiding collisions than the others.

1. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

[illiac786]

>better safety

Worse safety for everyone but the driver I would argue. Same for most heavier cars, such as SUVs.