I've been riding clipless since 1987. I started out with Look and switched to SPD about four years ago. I had one almost-fall in the beginning, and it was scary. I was taking a long-ish day ride, and I was towing my toddler daughter in a trailer. If I injured myself, I would be stranded with a crying kid. But I pulled up to a garbage dumpster and held on and got myself out.

Fast forward to this past fall. (Does that sentence sound funny?) My wife bought pedals and cleats, and we were on her first ride. We were on a bike path with zero traffic. I rode off the path and onto a steep grass bank. I tried to pedal back up onto the paved path but lost my momentum and fell over sideways. I burst out laughing because I thought it was so stupid. It was at such low speed my wife thought I did it on purpose as a joke. And it was MY first fall in cleated shoes.

Oh, long, long ago, I occasionally rode with toe clips and the old fashioned cleats where a slot in the cleat grabbed onto the rear edge of the pedal. THAT setup scared me, because it required reaching down to loosen the strap. As a result, I would usually tighten my left foot but not my right foot (my exit foot). It was an unfortunate compromise.