My first bike accident (as an adult) was simply squeezing the front brake too hard, so I don't count that one. However, the one I do count, because it was a huge lesson learned, because there are so many ways this could have happened and you have to be super vigilant to prevent, unlike the front brake thing, it's a relatively easy lesson to learn.
I was riding to work on a two-way road with no shoulder and the cars drive at near-freeway speeds (this was back in the mid-80's). I momentarily drifted off the road, being a relatively new cyclists, I immediately swerved back to get back on the road, but there was a little drop-off from the asphalt to the soil (ground) off the side of the road, as my front wheel hit that lip, which was only about a couple inches high, it threw me so fast I didn't even feel myself flying thru the air, but I did land directly in the middle of the lane, on the yellow line.
This is the weird part. I had two cars coming at me from both directions, but I didn't see them at the time, but I somehow just automatically jumped up, grabbed my bike and ran off the road. From the time I went flying thru the air, until I ran back to the side of the road, I don't remember one thought going thru my head, everything I did was without thought. All I remember was a mother with her kids in the car passing me with strange looks on their faces.
That's one day I should have died. To this day, if I feel myself drifting, I think of that accident. There are so many ways this type of accident can happen, even with those longitudinal cracks in the road, if you ride thru them and swerve you can go down really fast.
I never crossed any railroad tracks until I did my first long distance bike ride (1993), I did a 1,500-mile ride around the east coast and crossed a lot of rail road tracks, but my lesson was already learned on that day, so no problems, except once I did go down, but that was more out of complacency on a very wet, rainy day and it was my rear wheel that slipped out. That was a cool crash, because I just slid for the longest time and there was no pain involved, probably one of my best crashes, if you can call that one a crash, it was more like a slip and slide ride
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