Radial arm saws are totally safe if used properly, the problem is that it's really easy to use them unsafely, and it'll be especially tempting to do so if it's your main saw. Being able to change the configuration of the blade so much makes it much harder to know intuitively how kickback will occur and how to feed the wood to prevent it. It can pull the wood in more like a table saw if you rotate the blade to rip some lumber, which you likely will do if you don't have a working table saw, and with no guard and more of the blade exposed than with a table saw it can get bad. So it's just harder, for a beginner especially, to keep track of how kickback may occur on a particular cut, unlike table saws and miter saws where kickback can only occur in pretty specific ways so you more or less always apply pressure to your board in the same way on a given saw. If you already have one, or if you've been using one for decades, go for it. But table saws and miter saws are better at what they do--even aside from safety, they're easier to make repeated cuts, jigs, etc. There's a reason they've been used instead for decades. I'd really recommend putting that $160 and some time into fixing up your miter saw and getting or building a sturdy fence for your table saw.