[Gimpei]

If you have a large family, it’s hard to get by without an SUV. Four kids and all their car seats do not fit into a regular sized car. While it would be great if we could all just get my on public transportation and shank’s pony like in Europe, the ship left the port a hundred years ago on that one. Like it or not the majority of US cities are designed for the car.

[mitthrowaway2]

Didn't a minivan or a station wagon used to fill this role?

[paulmd]

Both of those are SUV-class vehicles and a minivan is pretty much the quintessential SUV. Other than styling there really isn’t a difference between a traverse and a windstar or whatever.

[mitthrowaway2]

One big difference, from a "killer cars" perspective, is the height of the front hood: https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/honda-odyssey-2014-...

(Sorry they don't seem to have the Windstar on carsized, but the honda odyssey is a pretty close match).

Station wagons and SUVs are different vehicles. SUVs are basically extended-cab sedans, whereas SUVs are built with higher ground clearance and a higher-center of gravity, many on a truck frame.

[paulmd]

no need to apologize, I was just using a windstar as an example of a generic 90s minivan, not as some super specific example. :)

that's an interesting comparison tool!

but yeah my point is more related to size and capacity than things like chassis. the fact that the windstar is comparably sized is the point I was trying to make.

it's a fair point that the hood is significantly different though, and I think that seems to be one of the biggest takeaways from the discussion here, that's specifically problematic and dangerous as a design element.

and if your point is that a truck chassis overall increases the weight and so on, and just makes it a heavier, more dangerous vehicle... that's probably true to some extent too, although a van chassis was never exactly "light". I still don’t fully agree with the implication that there’s a meaningful difference between a windstar or Astro van and a traverse as far as vehicle classification. They’re all utes really.

[mitthrowaway2]

Thanks!

Weight matters for a vehicle -vehicle collision, but for a vehicle-pedestrian collision, it's nearly irrelevant. (This is because the physics goes like M/(M+m); there's an asymptote, and once M>5m it's practically the same as infinity).

But height (especially of the front hood) is very dangerous, both for collision interactions and visibility. That's more or less why the chassis matters from a pedestrian safety perspective. Vehicles getting taller makes streets more dangerous, even if they weren't getting heavier at the same time.