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wrote:

I think a table saw or handheld router is much more dangerous than a
typical lathe.

There's one big difference between lathes and saws.

With my saw, I avoid doing dangerous stuff. A "competent" sawyer is one
who can (pretty much) simply not have bad things happen to them.

With a lathe I march straight into the worst case accidents and I keep
doing them -- I turn poorly balanced green wood, poorly supported and
likely to split or burst. I just don't know any way to avoid this (If
I'm going to keep using rough logs).

So my primary safety measure for the table saw is knowledge, but my
primary safety measure for the lathe is about _expecting_ the accident
and being sufficiently well armoured to survive it (and standing to one
side whenever possible).

As Conover said, "don't hold anything in a jam chuck that you're afraid
to be hit on the head with".

Even "Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking" covers the very basics of
turning.

Not very well though. You're much better off with some of the other
basic turning texts (I'd suggest Rowley's "Woodturning: A Foundation
Course" or even Conover's "The Lathe Book" in preference). Frid's
description is accurate, but it's terse and he doesn't emphasise a few
things that really need emphasis for beginners. Rub that bevel before
lifting the gouge up to cut! -- Although he does stress the evils of
over-reliance on scrapers, the usefulness of the skew, and the vital
importance of learning a planing cut from the start.