Ran over a dog when I was sixteen. That is the last time I have been down. I have never dropped my bike but it has been close a few times.

 

To me, it's like driving a car and never having a accident. How many can say that they have never been in a auto accident of any kind. Never hit or got hit by a car in a parking lot. Never had a on the road accident your fault or not. Truthfully, I don't think I know anyone that drives that at some point didn't have some sort of accident. If you ride, and do it long enough, you are going to have some sort of accident. Experiance and skill play a part, but so does luck. I'm working on my 45th year and I've had 3 accidents. 2 pretty minor and lucky accidents before I was 23, then I went about 27 years before I had another. I say they were lucky, because I should have gotten hurt a lot worse than I did and they were due to my inexperiance, youth, and stupidity. Today, I wouldn't even have had those same 2 accidents. One I could avoid, and the other was due to a situation that I'd never be in today. The third was a dandy and there wasn't a darned thing I could have done differently to have avoided it short of staying home and not riding at all. Some drivers go their whole life never being in a accident of any kind, but I think it's pretty rare just as it would be pretty rare for a bike rider to go without ever having one.

 

Practice makes perfect, that's another saying. Been down once, but I was practicing, (and drunk). Someday I'll be perfect, but, until that day who can say.

 

Obviously, there are no "absolutes". Some people are on the ground regularly, others never put a bike down...
the ones that are down on a more frequent basis are almost invariably the ones that fly by you dodging in and out of traffic that make you think" that idiots gonna be a hood ornament someday". aggressive riding makes you more prone to having a cage do something stupid in front of you that you can't avoid.
Over all, I think the odds are higher that if you ride for any length of time, eventually you will wind up in the dirt. you can do a lot to minimize the risk...ride like you're invisible. assume every cager is a retard with no driver training. if that space between you and the car in front looks like "lots of room to panic stop"...give yourself an EXTRA 50 feet of spacing, because it probably isn't.
I went down once, when I was 16. I'm 56 and haven't been down since, and I hope I never do, but ever since 16 I've dressed like it was going to happen today.
YMMV, but I won't risk skin grafts again.

 

Riding since '68 and never dumped a bike yet (knock-on-wood, rabbit's foot, salt over shoulder, hope 'n a prayer...)

So now I've gone and jinxed it. UHOH

Ride Safe.

geez, why'd I respond to this thread, bwwaahh!

 

It's a crock of ****. It's something losers believe in and those who have laid it down and are pissed and think it's wrong and that *everyone* should just because they did.

If you think you have so little control over anything that goes on in your life to actually believe something so stupid as 'It's not if you lay it down, it's when...', then you should kill yourself now and not have *any* worries whatsoever. Or, if you really believe something so stupid, then you should go out, as soon as you're done reading this, roll your bike out of the garage onto some nice big gravel and get a running start pushing it and then throw it to the ground as hard as you can. Leave all the scratches and dents and dings, because you just can never be sure that that was 'the time'.

Good grief. When or if you ever read or hear someone tell you that moronic saying, tell them to pull their head out and get the fsck away from you.

 

In 48 years I have never been down (knock on wood)was rear ended by a drunk once but kept the bike up even though it was a total loss... rebuilt the bike and my neck.

 

Been riding for 20 years, I'm 37. Never been in any kind of accident, never broken a bone. I am uber lucky...