Nothing (in my limited opinion) will help your bike handling like racing crits. Yeah they might be more 'dangerous' than a road race, in that there's possibly more likely to be at least one crash in a crit. However, my experience (this includes watching, not just racing) has been that there are lots of crashes in road races too, and that when there's a crash, they tend to be worse in road races. Crit crashes tend to happen in or around corners, when speed is lower. Also, I've noticed that many road race crashes happen when a little contact happens that, had they been experience crit races, wouldn't have led to a crash in the first place. The sort of bumping you can get used to (and stay upright) in crits often causes road racers (who aren't used to bumping) to panic, leading to crashes.
So there are risks of crit racing, but also huge benefits. I'm a much safer rider because I race crits regularly.