We are getting better with wake turbulence and avoiding it. These days it amounts to spacing mostly, but a few isolated incidents still get through. It is severe enough to bring down large aircraft like Airbus A320s, when they go through the wake of a 747 sized aircraft. The bigger the difference in aircraft, the more severe this becomes. Some of this is due to improper recovery on the pilot's side, some due to controllers for the spacing, and so on. I think a lot of people fail to think about it in "3 dimensions". I still get nervous when I get into the terminal area with bigger aircraft above and below me. There are some technologies in development that will help to mitigate this even further, but it's still a hazard and a risk due to humans in the system. Realize that when you're driving, some random person could just T-bone your car out of nowhere, so we do the best we can and try to mitigate the risk through various systems and training.