O.,

Well, first, you need to differentiate General Aviation from the
airlines and other professional flying. The latter is much safer.

Then you'll end up seeing that GA flying is about as safe as motorcycle
riding. There's a big difference, though: On a motorcycle, your safety
depends a lot on the drivers around you. In a plane, it's almost
entirely up to you.

And this turns out to be the deciding factor: The vast majority of GA
accidents comes from the pilot doing something utterly stupid - like
pressing on VFR into IMC, running out of fuel or trying to continue a
botched landing instead of going around. Thus, if you try real hard not
to commit any of these well published stupidities, your safety
increases a lot over motorcycle driving.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)