pointer falling off the bottom of the taskbar

When I have the taskbar set to "small icons" mode, it becomes possible to pull the pointer off the bottom edge of the screen, so that none of the tabs or quick launch buttons are clickable. With small icons mode off, the pointer is constrained to the bottom edge.

This is a bit irritating, because the machine in question is a laptop, and it's a lot easier to just yank the pointer all the way down than it is to try to land inside the taskbar to click on a tab. Is there any way to get the constrained behavior without giving up screen real estate?

I haven't changed the default for those icons and have the same action, also note it happens when moving to the right edge of the screen. The only time the pointer doesn't disappear is when moving to the top or left side. And if you look real closely the pointer still leaves a tiny bit visible on the bottom and right. I use a black pointer which doesn't always show on the edges but it has a white outline which helps.

The issue is that I would like to use the taskbar "small icons" mode, and still have the clickable area of the tabs and quickstart icons extend to the very bottom of the screen, so that swiping down off the edge of the screen results in the pointer still being over clickable tabs & icons. Currently, this is not the case. I thought the explanation in the original post was pretty clear - I'm not sure how else to explain it.