Although I agree with your (and the GP's) assessment that the fear for terrorism is extremely exaggerated, the statistics you give do not matter much for any person's fear of terrorism. The question is not what the likelihood is of some American dying of terrorism. The question is what my likelihood of dying from terrorism is.

Most people feel they can control lots of those other risks (or make them non-lethal) by caring for their health, eating well, thinking they are a superior driver, etc.
However, they feel they have no control over "death by terrorist" which increases the fear of it by an important factor.

It still not worth all the fuss, but it can explain some of the irrational fear about it.