SUV loses (on purpose?)

[Lisa Schiefer <seast@home.com>]

Yes, it's great to have stout bumpers; so many people parallel park like
they're playing rugby! Although, somewhere I read (European Car?) that
Mercedes' engineers purposely designed a "soft" front end into their sport-ute
to make it more pedestrian friendly. Of course, every one I see has a chrome
brush guard and big, round driving lights totally defeating this _feature_
(fault?). So, perhaps many new models do this, including the two examples
written about. It would certainly help level the playing field considering
most vehicles, including our Audi, are considerably smaller and lighter than
the now ubiquitous suburban. Thankfully, we do have great safety engineering
in our cars. I'm not starting a momentum vs. engineering thing here, just
saying if those vehicles are designed to crush like cans it can only help
whoever or whatever they hit (or get hit by).
Shane East
'85 Coupe GT