Nobody wants to think about crashing our motorcycles. That's especially true if it's a bad enough incident that we end up not being able to ride for a while, or worse. And yet, it's important to think about what we can do to mitigate harm (and maybe fix problems before they become insurmountable) on our bikes.
Most riders who've been doing it for a while that I've talked to (including myself) have made adjustments to our gear choices based on the times we've gone down. I knew someone who wore a full-face helmet all the time, but also simultaneously rode in a T-shirt (with gloves, strangely). It took one incident of bad road rash after someone merged into him coming down a highway off-ramp to convince him to wear a jacket; something about that wire bristle brush the ER folks used to scrub the gravel out really got to him, I think.
I can't really blame him; it took my own first low-side at low speed after hitting some oil to get me to finally invest in proper motorcycle pants with knee armor a long time ago. Normal, casual pants just don't cut it. But sometimes, our learning style is unfortunately the kind that requires hands-on experience. We can know things in our heads, but still not put them into action for a number of reasons, procrastinating because we don't have time/money/some other thing.
