Regarding safety in collisions:
Linked bellow is a report from the institute for Highway safety that
shows that a car colliding with a heavy SUV favors the occupants of
the SUV enormously. These are death statistics.
However, in Solo acciddents, like spin outs and collisions with
immovable objects, the car is far better and the statistics support
this.
Because in cars, 42% of deaths are in solo accidents. In SUVs, 63% of
deaths are in solo accidents. So basically, don't loose control of an
SUV or hit anything. In cars, only 27% of deaths occur when cars are
involved with something bigger than themselves, including buses.
The report concludes that by far, the most deaths occur in solo
crashes in both cars and SUVs. This speaks against SUVs being safer
overall.
Overall, except for slow city driving, I doubt the SUV is safer and I
personally don't feel safer in one cruising on a country road or
freeway, especially towing something.
Report:
http://www.iihs.org/sr/pdfs/sr4005.pdf