The 200 was a midsized car. It was not meant to transport a family of larger/taller people regularly. No midsized cars are. Some MAY BE ABLE TO, but those are exceptions. Larger cars exist for people who need room. 300, for example, is considerably larger in the rear seat... The post I am responding to presented a car more similar to 200 than to the current 300, but with a WORSE rear end design. If you'd pay attention and not worry so much about being "right" or "smarter", you'd see we're closer to agreeing than disagreeing on the design elements being discussed... Furthermore, a hypothetically larger 200 would solve many of the actual 200's issues due to the increase in size, so again, we agree more than we disagree...
Rear seat headroom hasn't killed the sedan market, what's killed that is the return of the station wagon in a much more appealing package - it's called a CUV these days - and improvements in trucks. There's also fewer trade-offs now, especially with CUVs; fuel economy is roughly the same, they drive roughly the same on the highway, they aren't too much larger, etc... Trucks are bit a larger, but most new trucks drive as well as or better than large sedans from 20 years ago.
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Furthermore, these excuses about not being able to afford a larger car are simply that - excuses. The prices for comparably equipped CUVs and sedans are roughly the same. If you can afford one, you can afford the other. Same for minivans... Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that these cars aren't all getting harder to afford, but that is another issue.
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But beyond that aspect (in the increasing costs), those of you claiming that the costs for one type far exceed the other simply aren't dealing with reality. For comparable equipment and features, you pay comparable costs. And if you can afford one, you can afford the other. If you cannot afford either, the used car market has you covered, and again, you'll be able to find larger cars.
These are all things that need to be considered before having children and furthermore need to be considered when aligning yourself with a political agenda and/or set of beliefs. Part of the reason such things as the transportation of children are so much of a concern and stressor these days is because it is no longer socially acceptable to place children in a seat without an over-sized child seat around. Nor is it acceptable to pile 4 or 5 children into the back seat of a car, let alone the cargo area... Furthermore, to maintain interior volumes but keep increasing "safety" even more, cars are growing larger... Most people don't perceive size in terms of interior volume, and so many end up looking at the wrong vehicle because they compare the outer dimensions first and end up down-sizing themselves.
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