I suppose Mrs. A is a touch more aggressive than my missus, although mine does drive a bit too fast for my tastes. Problem is I taught her to drive, but when I taught her i drove much faster than i do now. Guess I just have to wait for her to get older.
I've ridden with my brother and he love to tailgate WAY too friggin much. Normally I dont' say much about it, but when he was driving my car and nearly rearended someone while talking on the cell in stop and go traffic, I nearly reamed his arse for that. I told him if he can throw a rock and have a good chance of hitting the car ahead, he needs to back off.
Watching him drive while on the phone was a lesson in why you should NEVER drive and chat on the phone. As he drove i could see his reaction times increasing in length and I nearly had a heart attack before I told him to slow the *(&% down.
Mind you I'll scare him while driving on a twisty deserted road, but there's no traffic, and I'm allergic to the brake pedal
And on a smaller displacement being worse, I think it's due to the perponderance of lazy automatics that are hungry on the fuel. that and many autos will start off in second unless you force the tranny to go into 1st. I've a 3L Villager weighing in @ 2 tons and I haven't a problem accelerating from a stop. Now passing close to highway speed and going uphill, that's a different story.
To be quite honest, a lot of these small modern engines outdo their larger less sophisticated american counterparts by miles.