Transportation in the 1800s

I think I could handle the work, and the outhouses, but the worse part of life in pioneer times was transportation. Those rickety wagons looked so unsafe. No suspension except for a spring on the driver's seat. The seat seemes so high, so there's no center of gravity. Something goes wrong, horses get spooked and start running, and...disaster. Transportation didn't change for hundreds of years, just a rolling box pulled by animals.
Stagecoaches don't look any better.
Railroads looked like the safest mode of transportation, until the railroads reached the western mountains and then avalanches were a problem.

Here's a link to the Wellington train disaster in Washington State.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5127

I don't complain about regulations, they are there for a reason.

I believe canal travel, which was made obsolete by the railroad, was a safe way to travel; but it also was expensive to create.