well....DID you ACTUALLY ride the exact situation without brakes as well? can you warp time? if you can warp time, then i guess you wouldnt need brakes anyway. my point- you dont know exactly what wouldve happened. maybe instead of going over the bars and breaking your wrist, the van mightve transfered some of your energy and you wouldve fallen easier, probably not breaking anything, or it wouldve spun you into a roll and you wouldve walked away without a scratch. who knows? i ride brakeless, and ive been riding brakeless as long as ive been riding braked. my experience has shown me that riding with/without brakes are completely different riding styles, so all these people that say "oh, i almost hit da car da otha night, id be ded without mah brake", think again. you wouldnt have even been there, probably thinking better of it and relaxing on some backroad, traffic free. there are no comparisons between brakes and brakeless. interestingly enough, ive been in about 10 or 12 more crashes in the last two years with a brake than without, simply because i feel more secure and am therefore more willing to take risks that can and inevitably will result in injury. one important note- how many crashes occur in road races, where riders used braked bikes, VS the number of crashes that occur in mass start track racing, where NOBODY uses a brake?