Originally Posted by PeteHski

That's generally a good idea, but crashes are unpredictable things by their very nature. Coming from an aggressive mtb background I've had my fair share of crashes over the years and somehow come out largely unscathed. No broken bones amazingly, but I have suffered a few cases of road rash and I distinctly remember how painful it is if your hands do get involved. It's just one of those things. As you haven't experienced it you obviously don't worry about it and hopefully you never will.

This reminds me of another incident a couple of years ago. I try to encourage my daughters to wear gloves when we go mountain biking and our youngest often refused. Then she came off her bike after hitting a rut in the trail and ended up with.... yep you've guessed it, grazed up palms. It wasn't all that bad, but it did hurt and she did cry. Then she started wearing the gloves. That's kind of how it works with this sort of thing. It's like the helmet debate. I rode for years without bike or ski helmets and then one day I finally whacked my head hard enough to get concussion and then bought a helmet.