• The lights are higher color temperature than an incandescent bulb, so are perceived brighter for the same legal power output.
• The vehicle has a tall front grill because buyers want a truck-like front end to avoid being called a minivan. Once you have a grill, headlights look like eyes and it bothers people to have eyes low on a face, so the headlights end up on pretty high up from the road. The geometry of needing to be pretty much parallel to the pavement for long distance illumination and starting out high up gets the light into more oncoming drivers' eyes.
• I'm pretty sure these are aimed too high from the factory. Other driver's will sometimes flash brights at the vehicle's low beam headlights. It's great for the driver, until the oncoming car hits you.
Smaller, lower cars don't seem to have the same issues.
But if you look at the biggest pickups from the 80s they're not really that big. The whole compact and subcompact truck market has vanished. People only want 'em big.
1. There are rows of SUVs parked at most residential intersections. This way I can actually see what's going on at the intersection, and if I can safely enter it.
2. Less headlight-in-eyes issues.
3. More storage capacity in the trunk. Yay! I don't live in Madrid or London; I can't just stop by the nice little corner store on my way home and get fresh produce. I have to do trips to Costco and haul back a supply. This makes a big difference.
4. More room for fitting the kid's car seat in the back. Since car seats in close proximity to a driver's seat are dangerous (if they should impact during an, uh, impact), this is safer.
5. Better stability in our regional weather.
That's why I switched. Please be so kind as not to eat the serpent's tail: I don't care that if fewer people bought SUVs 1 and 2 would be irrelevant. I care that they -do- buy SUVs and this is my safety-oriented response to that reality.
So as people try to increase their safety in vehicle it becomes a feedback loop until the roads cannot be expanded further.
Meanwhile lower drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and everyone living within a few miles of busy roads suffers from blinding headlights, more deadly impacts, and increased pollution; respectively.
Glad we're all in this together!
-You're sitting significantly higher than most traffic, giving you a much better idea of what is going on around you.
-Mirrors tend to be very large by car standards, further enhancing your awareness.
-Large wheel arches tend to allow a smaller turn radius, making them surprisingly simple to drive.
-While riding tall, they are often both relatively short and narrow, further easing your life in traffic.
-Oh, and winters.
Anecdata - my Land Cruiser is shorter and narrower than my wife's VW Passat, has more than twice the trunk space and just over half the turn radius.
The penalty paid is the fuel consumption; when Toyota found out how thirsty the engine was, they shrugged and designed a larger fuel tank.
This also comes with a higher center of gravity which makes it more difficult to control the vehicle during emergency situations
> -Mirrors tend to be very large by car standards, further enhancing your awareness.
Larger vehicles tend to have bigger blindspots (even with properly adjusted mirrors)
> While riding tall, they are often both relatively short and narrow, further easing your life in traffic.
But you still have a higher center of gravity and worse vehicle handling as a result. Trying to swerve around something or make an emergency lane change makes it more likely you'll lose control of the vehicle
> Oh, and winters.
This is more a factor of the type of tires used and how many wheels are driven. My all-wheel drive vehicles do very well in the winters when equipped with snow tires.
> Anecdata - my Land Cruiser is shorter and narrower than my wife's VW Passat, has more than twice the trunk space and just over half the turn radius.
How would your Land Cruiser do in the moose test versus the VW Passat?
This is the video[1] of a Toyota Hilux during that test. And this is a video[2] of a VW Passat. Note that the first video was done while the driver was going 37 mph. The second was at 45 mph.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoHbn8-ROiQ
[2] https://www.motor1.com/news/388271/euro-spec-vw-passat-moose...
That being said - yes, the narrower track and somewhat higher CoG does make the LC handle less well than the Passat at speed, however this disadvantage is largely negated by the local conditions - I live in a (very) rural area where the posted limit is mostly 20 or 30mph.
Blind zones are definitely much smaller in the LC - side mirrors are almost three times larger and placed farther from the vehicle body; the rear window is more than 50% larger and, crucially, more than a foot closer to the rearview mirror than in the Passat, greatly improving the view.
I agree tire quality and wheels driven affect handling very much (obviously!) - part of the (local) problem being that when it snows, it really snows, and with very few people living on this island, every snowfall is effectively a DoS attack on the roads. When there are 6-8" deep ruts while waiting for a plough to eventually arrive, 15" ground clearance beats 6" ground clearance every time.
As for moose, luckily we don't have anything larger than deer, but if we did, I'd rather be in the Passat driving under the moose rather than in the LC getting it in the face, no doubt.
Again - I did not intend to leave the impression a Humvee was the only choice which made any sense -rather that 4x4s have properties which make them sensible choices to some people in some locations.
another (possibly more legitimate) reason is that many speed bumps seem to be calibrated for large vehicles with lots of suspension travel. the speed bumps at the grocery store I go to are incredibly jarring in my car, feels like I am bottoming out the suspension even under 5mph. in a big truck, this is not a problem.
People like to have a heavy vehicle so that they feel less at risk in a crash with other people who like to have heavy vehicles for the same reason, recursively.
The base cases are more mysterious.
[citation needed]