Another freak accident where the halo undoubtedly saved a life is Zhou's crash off the start at Silverstone 2022: https://youtu.be/B2XHq9d4OWI?feature=shared

That picture is scary, but it's not showing him nearly dying - it's showing the HALO device doing exactly why it was added.

I'm not denying motorsports are dangerous - particularly F1 - but it has become much, much, much safer over the past 10-15 years.

You are 100% correct, but that’s a photo of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, who were each others primary competitors at the time, and each have rabid fan bases. Whenever they have an incident together the commentary is usually (or at least was at the time) completely unhinged. A lot of people seriously claimed Max was trying to kill Lewis after that incident at Monza.

Hamilton was not nearly killed, not even a scratch. Its just showing how well the safety measures work for the modern cars.