When we arrived in Sydney this past Spring, we went to the shuttle stop that goes into downtown and drops off people at various hotels. These guys are private, so of course they try to shove in as many people as possible. So he shoved in as many people as possible, and then started loading the luggage. The luggage all went behind the back seat in this van and had a wire "cage" about halfway up. Well, this driver shoved and shoved and shoved to get all that luggage in and it was all the way to the top and looking pretty precarious.
So this one guy in the back speaks up and says "I'm not going anywhere with this luggage like this. What if you have to slam on brakes? This is going to come flying forward and break my neck." I thought he had a pretty good point. Well, the driver was having none of it. They almost got into a knock-down-drag-out over this luggage. Finally, the couple who's luggage it was agreed to sit in front of the luggage and the guy with the objections and his wife moved to the front...where they both sat in a seat-and-a-half.
But yeah... I wouldn't have wanted to sit in front of that luggage either. Especially not after I saw how the guy was driving too.