To be truthful to the OP, how many times have we ourselves been reiterating the old "it's safer than driving a car"? That is
only true for airline travel. GA aviation has about a 20-40 times worse record than traffic incidents and it's our responsibility to to not try to misinform or brush this off. It's on par with riding a motorcycle, or worse. Paul Bertorelli wrote a very good article about it couple of months ago on AvWeb:
Fatal Accidents
Is GA unsafe? No, I don't think so, but it's certainly riskier than driving a car. I'm all for making it safer, as long as it doesn't mean new burdens on pilots and students. And like he mentions, it's a balance we have to strike. It's hard enough already as it is and we don't want to make it impossible for new pilots to join this wonderful thing. In another article, I read that 46% of the fatalities are stall related. So here the work obviously continues. In a panic with a mountain or trees filling the screen, I can see that instincts and reflexes can make this one a hard thing to eliminate completely, i.e. I don't think it can be trained away fully .Perhaps a longer period of solo time before you're allowed to take passengers? Or a higher minimum age to get rid of the hot rod mentality? Or more instrument time incorporated into the basic training? I don't know, but the debate continues.