no, null pointers are enforced safe at the type level in zig, as are array bounds, this eliminates huge classes of errors, so you are not "responsible for everything". unlike c, you often (unless highly tuned performance is needed) do not have to resort to opaque void pointers, and the compiler gives you typesafety on that, another major footgun in c.
also operators and integer types are unambiguous, and there is no UB in safe compilation modes.
It's arguably much better than C, not "slightly better than C"
If you write a modern style of C, you can have bounds checked code and do not need to use void pointers. I usually find that people overestimate the advantages of newer languages compared to using C by comparing to old and badly written C.
I used Zig for my projects for a while, but moved back to C for similar reasons. C23, with gcc extensions, and using MISRA-like coding style where it makes sense, provides a similar experience to Zig but with seamless C interop. You dont have comptime, but my biggest lesson from my time in Zig is that I usually want to pass a vtable instead of monomophizing over input types.
also operators and integer types are unambiguous, and there is no UB in safe compilation modes.
It's arguably much better than C, not "slightly better than C"