Hopefully the OP will have picked up on the point by now that there is little point in trying to make generalisations about GA.
Yes I'd agree, made about GA, the quote about the drive to the airport is nonsense, as a generalisation at least. The point here is that general aviation flying is very much as safe as one makes it.
I was recently perusing an article in Flying, a US aviation magazine, and in particular a discussion about how to make GA safer; one of the contributers noted that possibly one route cause of the comparatively high accident rate is that the issue of danger is not addressed sufficiently in initial training and that we should spend less time trying to convince people who want to learn to fly that light aircraft are safe and more time convincing them of the dangers yet going on to explain how to overcome them.
So I'd say to the OP in answer to his question: It depends, if one is a diligent student pilot with good instructors after a while one will get an idea of what is 'best practice', follow it, and apply it with mounting experience and by then you will probably have found your answer...