It's impossible to talk about consumer drones without talking about safety. We worry that drones could fall out of the sky and hit someone, or crash into each other or into someone's home.

As Amazon starts testing its aerial package delivery service and Facebook moves forward with its plans to deploy WiFi drones in the developing world, these concerns are becoming both more commonplace and more timely.

But Helen Greiner, the CEO of drone maker CyPhy Works, thinks drones could actually save far more lives than they endanger. Speaking at the WIRED Business Conference today in New York City, Greiner told us that although safety will be an extremely important priority, as drones enter the mainstream they'll actually save humans from dangerous activities.

Today deliveries are being handled by trucks and cars—and driving is much more dangerous than flying.

Take cleaning your gutters. As Greiner points out, this can be a dangerous chore. According to the National Safety Council, falling is the second leading cause of accidental death after poisoning and the number one cause of non-fatal injuries in and around the home. If you had a drone equipped with a camera, you could avoid at least some of this danger by sending it up to your roof to see if the gutters actually need to be cleaned. More sophisticated drones in the future could handle dangerous tasks like actually cleaning the gutters, or putting up and taking down Christmas lights.

What's more, she notes, the sorts of drones sold on the consumer market are typically too lightweight to do much damage. But what about those Amazon drones zipping through dense urban areas? Greiner points out that today those deliveries are being handled by trucks and cars and that driving is much more dangerous than flying. In other words, delivery drones, much as self-driving cars, could reduce the number traffic accidents.

Of course, drones aren't capable of flying in cities yet. Greiner says it's a good thing that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't allow drone pilots to fly their craft out of their field of vision for now, because the technology to avoid collisions is not yet good enough. But it's coming. Greiner points to what's known as automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast, a GPS technology used by airplanes to maintain a safe distance from each other.

"The part we haven't solved yet is to make absolutely sure you're not going to hit a tree," she says.

But many companies are working on solving that problem, too. Autopilot and collision avoidance technologies are advancing. Once it's ready, drone-filled skies could be safer than today's car-filled streets.