Cars are literally designed to collapse in a crash. It's what the crumple zones are for. The passenger compartment is a protected space and the rest of the car

Cars are literally designed to collapse in a crash. It's what the crumple zones are for. The passenger compartment is a protected space and the rest of the car collapses to absorb as much energy as possible. This means that the accelerations experienced by the occupants are less, reducing the chance of serious injury. Typical SUVs (excluding more modern car-chassis based ones) use body on frame construction - the chassis of the car is a big and heavy steel ladder. It doesn't have the same crash performance - even though it may look less damaged, the accelerations experienced by the passengers are greater. https://www.autolist.com/guides/body-on-frame-vs-unibody https://www.autolist.com/guides/body-on-frame-vs-unibody