They typically don’t show the mounting pegs or explain where they fit. Maneuvers with a high “clench factor” end up being safer than they look.

It seems dangerous but how often do you hear about accidents?

most depictions of magic carpet flights have the carpet move very erratically because they have a mind of their own

That might be a good thing. If you fall, the carpet will rush down to catch you

I’ve only ever ridden mine a few tens of meters above the ground, but you’re right, still high enough to hurt if I fell off. It’s not really as unstable as you make out, more like a floating mat in a swimming pool.

The carpet is magic right? Maybe it creates a local gravity field like warp drives, so there is almost no internal acceleration. Or the magic makes you weightless.

Magic carpets are generally safe. It’s hard to fall and get hurt unless you’re stupid.

If it’s you doing the flight magic, it helps to focus your levitation on an object underneath you, like a carpet, a broom or whatever. It would feel stable like sitting on a pool floatie. If you got yourself up in the air and lose the carpet somehow, you probably have enough flying skill to land safely without one. Now, if you fly 2-3 km up and lose consciousness from lack of oxygen, you’re cooked.

If you aren’t magical and the carpet is doing all the work, then the carpet is your mount, like a horse. Well-trained mounts can feel the rider’s weight shift around and try to keep you seated. Just don’t make the carpet angry, or it might buck you off.

Not to mention the whole thing is one big crumple zone

Carpet would dive after you if you fell off. He’s cool like that.

All I can say to this is, it’s magic. So, you get to stay on if the carpet wants you to stay on.

That’s is, that’s your protection.

In ‘Rise of Endymion’, the ‘Magic Carpet’ creates a kind of force field that keeps its occupants in, and the wind out. But you can still slam and splatter into lots of bits if you hit a rock wall. The force field isn’t that powerful.

Its magic, magic takes care of all of that

People think the future has arrived because we have aircraft that marketing departments are calling “flying cars”. However, when we have “magic carpets” that float around with mechanisms not based on aerodynamics or lift, that’s when the future will have arrived.