General aviation aircraft are quite safe. I don’t have data on hand to back this up on mobile, but I’d wager more than half (honestly, more) of those GA incidents are pilot error, whether operationally or maintenance-related. Checklist culture and attention to detail is important, and has reasons for existing.

It’s a perfectly fine hobby if you respect it, and there’s no sense discouraging otherwise qualified folks from flying. GA is already in severe decline.

Cars are safe too - most of the traffic deaths happen because of the drivers, not because of the hardware.

I think when GP wrote "commercial airliners are safe... small private craft, not as much", they meant it from the POV of a passenger.