And once you make the machine so safe and easy to fly, you take all of the FUN out of it and when you stop enjoying flying it is time to quit.
How much fun is it being a modern airline pilot where the computer does 99% of the flying for you? It's very safe but how quickly do your pilot skills wane when you never get to fly the aircraft?
The less likely things are to go wrong, and the more capable and easy the aircraft is to fly, the less accidents there are - the airlines prove that. As an airline passenger, I give thanks for the fact that airliners are sturdy, safe and therefore boring to fly, and thanks again that I don't fly them for my job...