My biggest concern is that the docker daemon runs as root which allows for some easy privilege escalations. Having docker installed basically gives everyone root access. I am not sure if this is still the case though.
Yes, that is indeed a common problem. You can run Docker in rootless mode [1], which probably works for 99% of your development requirements. For production it is not always a good choice, as some features may not work properly (most importantly, Docker Swarm) or require extra configuration (allowing to expose privileged ports).