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Interesting perspective, I guess I didn't really think of the lexus. The Subaru forester comes to mind but for some reason I would give it a pass as acceptable, well, the first 2 generations.
The general traffic here in aus is the same. Dominated by large, but useless SUV's and then jacked up ford rangers, hiluxes, 79 series landcruisers. Range rovers, land rovers, more landcruisers... Giant V8 patrols etc etc. There's a particular trend that every 4x4 must be specced for the apocalypse and be at least 10" lifted over stock and rolling on a minimum of 33" muddies. Ridiculous doesn't cover it.
Driving a normal sized hatch is intimidating, let alone riding a bicycle!
TRA-
For sure. Fortunately where I live, its very residential so I don't come across too many of them when I am on a bicycle/can stay on quiet roads, but if I venture into the boonies literally everything is a big rig.
I agree - the Forester was a wagon until quite recently. My friend has a modern Forester and even that seems small compared the big American V8 type SUVs. I hadn't been to the UK in three years until this July just gone. The most immediately noticeable thing when I did return was how small vehicles seemed.
JB
If you genuinely want to know where it came from, I believe the demand for SUV/Crossover type vehicles really kicked off with the Lexus RX 300 in the U.S. - which has the drive train of a Camry - aka it lasts for 200,000+ miles - but had more space inside without being ridiculously big.
Unfortunately, that kicked off the trend of other manufacturer's trying to compete, but because they couldn't compete with Toyota/Lexus' reliability, they instead just made their cars bigger... and bigger... and bigger. Now its a cycle of someone wanting a new car, but as you say, wanting to feel safer, so they get the same sized car as other people so that they don't feel 'small' on the road.
The size of cars where I live is quite extraordinary. I live opposite a private school and the real life size of a 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe, Lincoln Navigator, Jeep Grand Cherokee etc is quite frankly laughable. I'm 5'8" and the bonnet is the same height as me if I am standing in front of it.
I bought a Mazda CX-30 in October - which is easily the nicest car I've owned from a pure driving perspective. It's well priced, its very nice inside, yet you hardly see any of them on the road because its 'too small.' And when there's a huge pickup/SUV behind me, man do I feel vulnerable. Their LED headlights shine directly into my eyes via my mirrors. And its a lifted hatch. I can't imagine what people in actual hatchbacks or small sedans feel like when there's a monster truck breathing down their neck.