What frame is the Explorer built on? How much bigger is a Suburban than an Expedition? Let's get online and look at crash test results for the latest model year. Money is no object, let's see the next bigger thing. Does this have passenger side air bags? Can you get side impact air bags on this model? These are not the kinds of discussions I'd expected to have when looking at new cars. I didn't even expect to be looking at new cars. Now, we're trying to decide what's the biggest thing on the road. It seems to be the Ford Expedition. This car will cost me more in the first 6 months than I paid for my last 2 cars combined. As I drive around now, I look at the different cars on the road and the different people in them. Families in a Corolla, a Taurus, even any of the dozens of different mini-vans. Moms in rusty, ten year old cars with their kids strapped carefully into their approved and tested carseats, facing the rear if they're infants, facing front in their boosters if they're older but still under 40 pounds. They all look like victims waiting for death to find them. Waiting for some drunken idiot in a new SUV to seek them out. And kill them. So, we look for the most metal we can wrap around us and still move down the road at a reasonable speed. This will give us the illusion of safety. I've read two stories in the last few weeks about accidents caused by airborne cars crossing the median and crashing into opposing traffic. I wonder what kind of protection the Expedition is against that? - October 19, 1998