Exactly.
The other day my manager asked me, "Have you ever been injured doing deadlifts?"
"Yes. As you know I scoliosis, and I went too far too fast without someone to watch my form, pulled too hard, all the pull went through one side, strained the muscles. But since then I've either had a trainer watching every rep, or else progressed slowly and carefully, trying to make every rep perfect. When I was sedentary I woke every morning with my back seized up, took twenty or more minutes of walking and stretching just to be able to function. With regular and properly-performed deadlifts, no problems."
The thing about the big free weight compound lifts is that they have less room for error than all the machine and isolation lift. You can be pretty sloppy on a machine bench press and you're unlikely to hurt yourself. Get sloppy on deadlifts and bad things can happen.
As a trainer, I've always been a stickler for form, and been cautious but not cowardly with the weight and reps progression. I don't hesitate to stop a rep - it's common for people to get a great setup for the deadlift, then on the first pull their lower back rounds. "Stop. Now set up again, and keep your chest up the whole time."
Of course things become different when someone's pulling twice or more their bodyweight. But that's not something I claim to know about - I train beginners. And let's face it, beginners are the ones most likely to injure themselves frequently, in all sports. You get more knee reconstructions happening in social volleyball or netball than professional, more torn pecs from the bros at the gym doing nothing but bench and curl than from the competitive powerlifters.
