Frightening but hardly surprising. The simple physics and inertias involved imply that the smaller car should always be worse off. Nonetheless, the Fiat 500 retains the best safety rating in its class (not just the 5 stars, but 7 airbags and a score of 35) and the 4 stars for the Audi Q7 is horrendous when one considers its size and price. The same thing happens (with regard to price) when one also considers the much smaller Audi A3: we still have only 4 stars.
From a safety point of view we either should all be driving small cars or all be driving tractors. Thankfully the first option is the driection we're heading in Europe (with the exception of Germany). Not so much because of safety but environmental concerns, today some eight countries in Europe impose heavy surcharges on SUVs at time of sale. Spain and France, for example, impose a 2500 euro surcharge on the Q7 (which is in the worst CO2 bracket) and SUV sales in these countires have nosedived in 2008. This is promising to be the trend in all of Europe (except Germany) in the short term.
