I think that's a neat idea, though it's complicated by how this game is implemented. I use sprite 0 hit for pixel-perfect collision detection, so I know that a collision happened, but nothing else about it. That means I don't have the information I'd need to bounce the player back to a safe position. It might require a separate collision system on top of the sprite 0 hit, or something hacky like returning the player to the previous frame's position when collision occurs on one frame (but coupled with the autoscrolling, this could eject the player into a wall). I could let the player have iframes that let them briefly move through walls to a safe position, but I'd be worried about this either becoming an easy way to beat levels or the duration too short to get to a safe spot.
A more feasible approach to solving the same problem might be to remove the autoscrolling to remove the pressure that makes execution a challenge. For the faster stages, I suspect taking damage is likely to be followed very quickly by death, anyway, so no autoscrolling might be the way to go.
Thanks for writing and I appreciate the feedback; it's something I'll have to give some thought!