Looks like my English irony didn't come over properly. Let me explain :-)

One of the other justifications I hear for "must have an SUV" is that the owner couldn't fit their entire family plus luggage for a trip away in a Smart, or a Mini, or a Renault Clio, and thus must drive a massive SUV. There's a false dichotomy there; the fair comparison is not "Range Rover" versus "Smart"; it's "Range Rover" versus (say) "Audi A8", where carrying capacity is similar.

As the Lexus IS (while not a small vehicle) has lower carrying capacity than many SUVs, I thought I'd describe it as "small"; I didn't want SUV apologists attacking me for not realising that they need immense load carrying capacity.

FWIW, I do see the market niche for SUVs; round here, it's people who need the carrying capacity of something like a Ford Transit Connect, but also need to be able to go offroad. I mentioned that my mother in law drives an SUV; she's a nurse, and has to make house visits to patients who can't get out in good weather, let alone snow. Worse, some of those patients aren't in houses on good tarmac roads, they're at the ends of muddy clearings that they used to maintain, but can't now they're injured. The SUV lets her get out to these patients whatever the weather, which means fewer people in hospital (i.e. more space for people who really cannot be elsewhere).

I've seen two fatal road accidents, and one injury accident in the last ten years. All three involved children, all three involved SUVs.

In the case of the two fatalities, the SUV driver was confident that the power and weight of their vehicle would let them do things that other road users weren't risking; it turns out that even a 3-ton SUV is going to lose against a 40-odd ton truck.

In the case of the injury, it was even simpler; the kid did something stupid (ran in front of their parent's vehicle, not behind it, to cross to the shop opposite their school), got hit at relatively low speeds (about 10 mph), and instead of going over the car (seen that, too, with a Lexus IS - quite survivable by the size of kids in question, who were merely shocked), went under the wheels (Range Rover). The resulting injuries needed hospital treatment.

As to the two fatalities? Fatality one was caused when two big rigs on a 3-lane highway hadn't seen each other and decided to signal to change lanes, the one on the left moving right, the one on the right moving left. The rest of us dropped back - you do not want to be next to a big rig when it's in a crash. The SUV driver went round the traffic that had dropped back, and tried to overtake - they nearly made it, but got hit by one of the big rigs. The SUV was crushed against the central reservation, then driven over by the rig that hit it. Result? Two adults declared dead on the scene, their child declared dead before I'd finished giving my statement of what I'd seen to the police.

The second was in icy conditions, climbing a hill with (again) big rigs coming down towards us. The SUV decided to try and overtake, lost control, span onto the other side of the road, and got hit in the side by a big rig. The resulting damage meant that people on the side that was hit were killed (possibly at time of impact, possibly when the SUV rolled and then slid on the damaged side), but people on the other side of the vehicle were OK.

You will notice a pattern to the serious incidents; someone does something stupid, and an accident ensues. In the two fatal cases, a better driver wouldn't have been involved in the first place; for the first of the two, they'd have observed that the trucks were signalling stupid plans, and that everyone else was dropping back, for the second, they'd have noted the icy conditions, and decided to take a bit longer rather than overtake when there's traffic coming downhill. I find myself wondering whether the sense that the SUV would protect them encouraged these drivers to take risks that they just wouldn't risk in a smaller car; if it did, it cost them dearly.

In the injury case, there wasn't that much the driver could do - similar accidents occurred at that spot about once every three months, as there was a school on one side of the road, and a shop on the other. Kids dropped off at school sometimes decided to go to the shop instead; if the kid was especially distracted, or especially foolish, they'd dart just in front of the car that just dropped them off. Result is one accident - small vehicles like the Lexus IS throw the kid over the bonnet, and there are no injuries, just a seriously terrified kid and parent. SUVs force the kids under the car, and if the wheels get them, it's serious injury time.

My conclusion? If you're buying an SUV to "keep the kids safe", you're better off spending the difference in price between a car and an SUV on advanced driving lessons; learn to read the road, and make better judgement calls. You're better off with half the chance of being in an accident, and a 25% higher chance of someone dying in the accident than you are with a slightly lower chance of someone dying in the accident, but twice the odds of being in an accident in the first place.

Further, it's worth thinking about the bumps and scrapes you've actually been in - if your experience is that you're regularly in high speed crashes involving other vehicles, but never in incidents where the collision speed is low, or there are no other vehicles involved, then an SUV might be a good idea on safety grounds; if you're like the rest of us, where you're as likely to be in an incident where you're the only motor vehicle involved (e.g. when parking), or where the collision speed is low (fender benders instead of head on collisions), a smaller vehicle meeting modern safety standards is going to protect you just as well, and you'll have money left over for driving lessons.

I don't see why the German language student shouldn't have access to the vocab list, or the political science student shouldn't have access to the detailed history of the Thirty Years War. If the exam questions are good (which was the case for the exams I took at undergraduate level), using your vocab list or your detailed history costs you time that you need to provide a high scoring answer.

If you have to check something in the history to ensure that you're not confusing the Thirty Years War with the Hundred Years War, or check the vocab list to ensure that you've correctly understood one or two words, you don't lose much time, and can give a strong answer based on your comprehension of the subject. If you have to check every word in the vocab list, or read the history during the exam to understand the subject, you're not going to have time to answer the questions properly. In short, letting them have the vocab list, the history, the notes on electronic circuits isn't a bad thing - it forces the student to demonstrate comprehension and understanding, rather than recall of arbitrary facts.

You miss something important that applies in both directions; when a Brit brings their judgement to the US, or an American brings their judgement to the UK, it's not automatically enforceable (as a judgement from New York state would be in an Illinois court). If I (a UK resident) were sued by e360 in Illinois, judgement was granted, then e360 tried to get it enforced here, I would be able to argue in the UK that I didn't show up because the Illinois court has no jurisdiction over me. If the UK court buys my argument, the judgement cannot be enforced over here, and e360 would have to sue me again in a UK court to get at my assets. Of course, if I brought assets into the US, they could be seized to pay my US debt; I'd have to be careful to not bring things over.

Same applies the other way round - if my local court rules that e360 owes me £1,000,000 because they don't show up, and I try to get it enforced in the USA, e360 could argue jurisdiction when I arrive in Illinois. If the US court agrees with e360, my UK judgement is unenforceable in the US, and I have to get a fresh US judgement to get at any US assets of e360; again, if they bring assets into the UK, I can have them seized under my UK judgement.

The target group are the people who currently have two cars, one that gets 10mpg, one that gets 33mpg, both doing similar mileage. They're in a position to replace one car, and they want to change whichever car will save them most on gas.

TFA claims that 2 out of 3 people will choose to replace the 33mpg car with a 50mpg car in preference to replacing the 10mpg car with a 20mpg car, presumably on the basis that they're improving by 17mpg, which is a bigger number than 10mpg.

Also:

• Price of a 737: $50,000,000 or more.
• Price of a Toyota Prius: $20,000 or more.

Even if the computers in the 737 cost 1,000 times as much per unit as those in the Prius, it's still cheaper per unit sold to fit 3 to the aircraft than it is to fit 3 to the car. Plus, of course, avionics failure is pretty much guaranteed to end in bad press for Boeing; many failure modes for the Prius's computers end up with the driver being blamed, and no bad press for Toyota (car accidents are so much more common than plane accidents that they're not automatically newsworthy).