Sport wagons use less gas and are safer - to replace SUV?

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-neil18aug18,1,7812897.story?coll=la-home-highway1

Enter, the anti-SUVs (BMW 325xi wagon and the new-for-2005 Volvo V50 T5 AWD)
Sport wagons use less gas and are more likely to stay upright. Is it time to climb down from the sport-utility perch?
By Dan Neil Times Staff Writer

August 18, 2004

This just in from the government's Bureau of the Obvious: SUVs are more likely to roll over than cars. Coming soon: a statistical regression analysis involving fingers and light sockets.

Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled a new component in its five-star system for ranking vehicles' rollover risk. NHTSA will now issue a percentage representing the odds that a vehicle will roll over in a single-car accident. According to this scale, for example, the Mazda RX-8 has only an 8% chance of rollover. The Ford Explorer Sport Trac 4x2 has a 34.8% chance of rollover, the highest of any vehicle in the latest testing cycle. (The results can be viewed at http://www.nhtsa.gov.)

And they say God doesn't play dice.

Rollovers occur in only a small percentage of highway accidents but account for a quarter of all traffic fatalities, according to the government's statistics. Rollover deaths in accidents involving SUVs rose 6.8% last year, to 2,639, accounting for 40% of fatalities in SUV accidents. For the same period, rollover deaths in cars declined 7.5%.

SUVs are not highly nuanced, in the language of political campaigning. They are guilty instead of flip-flopping.

Consider your options. There are more than a dozen all-wheel-drive station wagons on the market, vehicles that combine foul-weather intrepidity, flexible cargo space, car-like performance and handling, and conscionable fuel economy, all with a marked proclivity for staying right side up.<snip>

[Zan_of_Texas]

1. best thing about an SUV...

is the high-up perch -- you can see traffic better.

(It also seems to suit Republicans very well, because they like to look down on everybody else.)

Other than that, you can get just about everything an SUV has in a sport wagon.

I know, I've owned both.

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. Almost

Other than that, you can get just about everything an SUV has in a sport wagon.

Almost everything. But for a sustained 285HP (4000RPM, WOT several minutes while climbing) and enough weight to stabilize the fromnt of 6000Lb trailer on winding roads in the hills. Takes a bit more than most sport wagons can provide. Granted not all SUV/Truck are used this way, but some are.