They might had copied that idea from their. And so they can go through the whole universe.

Assumedly developments would/could also be made in safety. Be it large air bags, parachutes even some sort of safety foam (think Demolition Man). That sort of transport would need to be heavily regulated though you'd've thought.

Well, I don't know about helicopters, but if you compare the survival rates of plane crashes and car crashes, planes are said to be safer. But maybe that's because there are way more cars in the world than planes.

Agreed, some form of manual control/override is an obvious must for any form of automated transport.