I think the point he was making is not that they are less safe, but the public percieves it to be that way. Much of the reason that turboprops have seen a decline is the fact that the public percieves this as old technology. They have no grasp of how a turboprop engine works nor do they realize that the Q-400 they're getting on has 45 years of lessons learned and changes in design philosophy incorporated into it that that DC-9 doesn't have. They see props and they think "unsafe puddle-jumper that are always crashing".

Anybody catch ABC World News Tonight? They ran a story about a system that's in testing at DFW to reduce runway incursions. I noted about 10 errors in the story. Worst of which, an ATC tape along with an animation listed as a "Private Pilot". The aircraft shown in the animation was a jetstar and based on the callsign and the pilot's accent english was not their primary language. The media doesn't help this perception one bit but the public is too ignorant to care. Why should they? They don't care who or what they're flying as long as they get from point A to B on time and safely.