Is kernel panic common? I am a bit shaken with Ubuntu as my main daily driver OS

I got the kernel panic screen related to recent 6.17 kernel. Reddit helped me load into the older kernel and delete the 6.17 kernel. My question is

Is there issues in continuing to use 6.14 kernel? I am wary of attempting to upgrade the kernel to 6.17 if it's going to brick the OS. So I would like advice on what are the risk of just not updating the OS anymore.

Is this kind of issue common to Ubuntu users? Reliability is the highest importance to me. If this kernel panic going to be a common issue, then I am considering trying other distro and moving on from Ubuntu.

Thank you.