if they hit you, you’re going underneath, not over the top
I don't really understand American car categories, such as SUV, but anyway, older models of the Nissan Leaf have done well in the "Vulnerable Road Users" (VRU) part of crash tests, with the most recent model on the Euro NCAP site scoring 71% in the VRU Protection category.
That's the 2018 model, so quite old. I wouldn't expect this latest model to perform much worse than that though and I wouldn't be surprised if it performs even better. Here's the side view - it doesn't look as low and angled at the front as the 2018 model, but you can still see that it's been designed with not killing pedestrians in mind:
Definitely not, lol. Nearby countries with fast rail - France, Spain, Germany - would perhaps give a slight bemused smile in the direction of HS2. Those are big countries where high-speed rail makes actual sense - as just one example, from the German town of Karlsruhe right by the border with France, you can take a TGV to Lyon, about 350 miles away. It takes around 5 hours and will probably cost you less than €100.
However all those countries are all too familiar with their own governments mismanaging public works. So they wouldn't be shocked at the huge sacks of cash that are being tipped into great holes in the ground, and any laughter would be at the idea that this ridiculously unnecessary governmental vanity project is even being built at all.