Chances are the Mercedes was designed to crumple like paper. It's safer for passengers if the body of the car absorbs as much energy from the crash as possible. Unfortunately, physics will forever handicap the safety of small cars when they meet larger cars. The problem is that the brain is soft and the skull is quite hard, so brains don't deal well with rapid changes in acceleration. Let's assume you are in a Smart Car and hit an SUV head-on. The SUV is going to keep moving forward, while the Smart Car will make a rapid change from moving forward to backward. Even assuming that the Smart Car came through the incident without even a scratch, its passenger will still sustain serious and probably life-threatening injuries. Or, assume you're sitting at a light and an SUV plows into you either from behind or from the side. Again, the SUV will slow down a little, but the Smart car is going to accelerate very quickly. And I unfortunately remember enough from physics to know that F=MA, and that spells trouble for your brain. I'm not trying to put the Smart Car down, and I personally hate SUVs. But more massive cars are going to be safer.
