Wish I knew.
>Sounds like you are trying to justify your needlessly large/heavy vehicle.
I drove a Honda Jazz until I literally couldn't fit everything in anymore. I found I could carry 4 1.2 meter galvanised steel poles at an angle before I ran out of capacity. Which worked fine for me, I wouldn't be anxious unless they were literally scraping the windshield. I could carry half a rack of servers in the back with the seats folded down, before the back of the thing would start to scrape pavement. I needed something that could do better than that when I upgraded. Most hatches and sedans were a backwards step, and Honda stopped selling the Jazz in Aus. But for whatever reason, people feel the need to comment on the large vehicle.
>Plenty of accidents still occur with vehicles that have all those features.
With reduced impact.
>like increased pollution and road degradation.
I get better distance per litre out of the big one, and if its more polluting then I don't understand why I struggle so hard with the DPF which is literally designed to bring the thing down to our honestly egregious emissions standards, I literally dream about getting it illegally removed. "Road Degredation" seems marginal at best, wider tires spreading the load out further. Seems like another engineering problem if it is a problem. The poms figured out how to prevent their CVR light tanks from causing road damage, I am sure big utes aren't that much of an issue.