I still say, the most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport!
This is the truth. I was married to and am the mother of private pilots. We had a Cessna172RG and some of the best moments of my long and eventful life were spent in the right seat of that plane. I have never felt so safe in an airplane as I felt in that highwing plane. We went everywhere: we flew from Iowa to Chicago (when the much beloved Meigs Field was still operative) from Iowa to Maine, from Maryland to Connecticut, routine weekend hops from CT to Block Island, the Cape, Montauk, DC. Perhaps it helped that I slept with the pilot, who I figured had a vested interest (for a while) in keeping me alive.
I am not happy in large commercial planes. They have no glide slope. You lose a prop or an engine and goodbye Charlie. In a small plane, pilots--good ones, anyway--constantly practice engine-out maneuvers and essentially (especially in Iowa where we lived for 3 years: don't ask) everything is a potential landing site.
Give me a Cessna152/172/182 any day over a 737/757/Airbus. The only issue is time. And refueling. And no movies.