Am I the only one who's majority of close calls are due to his/her own stupidity?
Oh *hell* no!
I've done the "took a curve too fast and braked (broke?) too late and slid off the road" thing. Me no hurt, but had a little issues with fairings.
My first *real* lesson, in my first season as a rider, was that whole "you drive where you look" lesson:
I was looking at the trees as I rode past them and then rode off the road. Not into a tree, just into the grass. It was a VERY slow slide off the pavement, and did minimal damage to the bike, but I ended up with a broken thumb (Bennett's fracture, from not letting go of the handlebars as I went over), which required that I ride an hour home with extreme pain (shifting was hell). I didn't know it was broken, but I knew something was wrong when I spent a hot August afternoon laying on the sofa, shivering, watching an *Adam Sandler* movie.
I ended up having surgery (yes, it was full nudity and anesthesia), with a series of three casts and two pins (which were later removed but I still have them), and I lost two months of riding weather. A few days after I got the cast off, it was off for our first fall vacation. Man, *that* was challenging.
So not only did I take to riding a little late in life, but it resulted in my first broken bone and my first cast and my first surgery. And you know, the experiences were *almost* worth it all.