Many Miata drivers are in their 50's and very safe - this makes insuring the little sportscar much cheaper for the rest of us.
That's another plus.
My advice to anybody looking into buying a Miata: Don't drive one unless you're already pretty sure you want to buy it.
I've driven my '97 daily for the last five years and I love it. It can be scary with big-rigs and suvs all around, but you get used to it. You sometimes have to dart around a bit, but that's exactly what the car's good at. They are very small but handle accidents excellently, crumpling to protect the passengers. Those models with the 'cockpit brace' probably have somewhat more side-impact protection. Here's a quote from another forum:
"The car has a soul that not many cars have. It literally becomes an extension of your body when you drive it. Just yesterday, I bombing some mountian roads on the way home, and I realized that in some ways, it was still more fun than the new Corvette that sits next to it in the garage. It's a different kind of fun, but realizing that I knew exactly where every corner of my car was, and that she was as nimble as feral cat, and she's as tossable as a beach ball, and that she fit into spaces that no other car will fit, and the way she talks. Oh God, it's like an intoxicating siren call -- she begs to beaten, she begs to be ridden hard, she tells you exactly what she wants and she never tricks you, never lies to you, never tells you anything that you don't want to hear."
I will echo everybody else's comments about reliability. Apart from regular maintenance, I've had to replace the clutch master and slave cylinders - figure a DIY $120 or so, not sure what a shop would charge. These cars eat plug wires about every 30,000 miles or so - $30. After three years of neglecting the crunchy noises, my automatic antenna finally quit working. 123,000 miles on mine so far.
You ready to buy one yet?