Because people think these SUVs are "safer" due to their size. And then it becomes an arms race; you see the highway full of large SUVs, and you feel vulnerable in a tiny compact car, because you think they will crush you in a collision, so others start buying SUVs to "protect" themselves. These land-beasts might be comfortable but they are unsafe, take an excess and unfair amount of space on the road, consume too much fuel, and trigger arms race. They need to be regulated to death for most users.

Yes. IMHO insurance costs should have to figure in the externalities to society of their increased risk to other vehicles on the road, even when the SUV driver isn't at fault. Crashes will happen, but even when the root cause is another vehicle, an SUV in the mix increases the likelihood of a crash due to worse braking distance and increases the severity of the damage to other vehicles due to its mass. SUVs make the road measurably worse for all other users of the road due to their negative externalities.

This is one of the reasons I ride bicycles and motorcycles. I take on more personal risk, but the overall effect is a reduction in accident, injury, and mortality rates for road use.

Anecdotally, my former gf managed to flip my Taurus by striking a parked car on the road at 15mph. Police verified that she wasn't moving faster because she practically flipped it in place, rather than ending up a significant distance away. Just a case of hitting at just the right angle and riding it up, I guess.

I was wondering how did SUV rolled because for that to happen you need force getting applied on car that is on Y axis (the +X axis being the forward direction) which will ultimately produce the torque causing the roll. After looking at video at low speed, here's how we got that force vector:

1. Hatchback hits on tangent producing torque and spinning SUV by 90-degree.

2. SUV collides with barrier which produces force vector that is normal to collision surfaces and slightly off forward direction.

3. The driver now seems to have pressed on breaks really hard which produces another force vector. But this vector is now quite off original forward direction because car had been rotating.

So the moral of the story is that if SUV is rotating and you press on breaks really hard, you will get roll. This is purely because SUV has higher clearance and so even small force can produce enough torque that will cause roll. It looks to me if driver hadn't pressed on breaks really hard, the rolls could possibly been avoided or reduced.

I've seen a crash that was very similar. A tiny car hit the rear bumper of a SUV, on the right half, not really even a hard hit. The SUV got turned to the left and hit the slightly raised center of the road (maybe 10 cm high?) and spun and slid on its roof. Everybody was okay in the end.

I was in a very bad accident when a GMC pickup t-boned my 98 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS at ~55mph. My car crumpled and was totaled but took the hit and went for a 4 wheel slide across the road. A nice balanced car takes hits really well. And I'm very glad I wore my seatbelt.

That also depends on the momentum (weight ratio, impact speed angle, etc.) The lesser the weight, the worst off during impact - we've seen that too often in NHTSA crash tests.

Flipping depends entirely on geometry. SUVs have high suspension, have a lot of weight at their top, and have an overall higher height to width ratio. Also, their aerodynamics do not push as much down as on lower cars.