I find SUV drivers are amongst the most aggressive drivers on the road, they're up there with white van man.
They tail gate and drive faster than most.
I think the "I'm alright Jack" attitude about coming off better in a crash if you're in a SUV is very selfish as it exposes other drivers to greater risk.
Sigh, here we go with the generalisations and authorative statements from people with a chip on their shoulder about 4x4s for whatever reason.
OK so, how about this - I find people have this misplaced notion that 4x4 drivers (doesn't seem to matter to these people if it's a SUV or a genuine commercial vehicle either) are "aggressive" and will overcompensate in their OWN aggressiveness when encountering them - eg. my husband (who uses our commercial 4x4 for work purposes) was driven off the road by a bint in a hatchback, she swerved aggressively into his lane, while being level with his door, and forced him to take the decision to mount the pedestrian-free footpath and hit a pole rather than risk a crash with said bint. She kept driving away from the scene while my husband had to assess the damage to our vehicle caused by aggressive hatchback driving. Hence - a 4x4 driver whos' driving is courteous to a fault, is literally run off the road by aggressive, ignorant, female hatchback driver. There's one anecdote to scupper your theory.
And "we" certainly do not drive faster than most - due to the vehicle being heavier, I am more aware of the need to be able to stop safely in an emergency and hence drive more slowly and conscientiously than I would if I were driving my car (when I say that, I don't mean I don't drive conscientiously when driving my car, but I am on extra high alert when driving the 4x4). Also the fact that you may have a load in the back of the 4x4 would mean you would drive more slowly to avoid over-braking and possibly dislodging the load.
I am female, but I am comfortable with safely reversing/parking larger or higher vehicles (perhaps due to learning initially to drive in Hiace/Transit vans, which were my father's work vehicles) but maybe I am the exception to the rule - I do agree that there is nothing more frustrating than seeing someone, male or female, trying to maneouver a vehicle they clearly are not able for, I often feel like pointing them in the direction of a smart car, which is about the size some people should be driving if they cannot manage simple maneouvering tasks. My own first car was a Nissan Micra, and trust me, I would far rather encounter me now in a 4x4 than me as a nervous learner teenager in a Micra!
As for the safety aspect - that did admittedly influence our decision to purchase. I was involved in an accident last year where I was rear-ended while sitting in traffic in my Peugeot 206, and the car crumpled to a concertina. The jeep in front of me, which my car also hit due to the force of the impact, hadn't even a scratch on the point of impact, so having been that innocent person sitting in the smaller car coming out of an accident caused by an idiot driver (I was struck by a car, incidentally, a station wagon style car), with back injuries and a completely written off car, I would most definitely choose to be the person in the 4x4 who is still alive after some other irresponsible driver causes me to be involved in an accident, rather than possibly the dead driver of a smaller car which crumpled to oblivion.
As an aside, I read that in a survey carried out in the states which assessed carbon "footprints" of 74 vehicles, the Toyota Prius (or pious as it's colloquially known) came out bottom of the pile in 74th place with the worst ratings for carbon emmisions from production to disposal, and the number 1 car for least emmissions was the Jeep Wrangler.
hmmmmmm..........