Found a study that seems sound. It seems that you are technically "safer" in the average SUV than in the average economy car, but midsize and larger cars are "safer" than SUVs. The big difference is that an SUV is much more likely to kill the person in the other vehicle. Oh, and pickup trucks are death traps.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...0.1.1.186.5839 you have to download the entire