Another way of highsiding I had not thought of.  Wife popped her scooter off the outside of a corner into the grass, instead of dropping and sliding, she rode it back onto the road, hitting the raised edge of the road diagonally.  Front wheel went on fine, but the rear wheel bounced up, banged back and forth a couple of times and then grabbed a bit when sideways, torqued the front wheel around and the scooter went over forward, skidded hard on the front with body damage showing a decent slide on fender and bars.  

She flew briefly, landed on hip & elbow, bounced up.  Think she went over on her back for a moment, then over onto her front for a final slide.  Jambed her fingertips, sore wrist, abraded knees, and many bruises.  She hit the end of the handlebar with her thigh.  

She borrowed my new jacket and helmet, had gloves and good shoes on.  The helmet slid on the back a little and on the front a little, hit firmly, but not tremendously hard - think she was likely chattering along the road.  Enough force to make things blurry for her.  Jacket has holes in it through the mesh in an amazing number of places, the Cordura patches just got scuffed (guess what my replacement is made of), inner mesh liner held up.  

If she'd low sided the grass, wouldn't have been any problem.  A couple of dings in the bike.  The high side was remarkably destructive.  I've got the glass work done, and am into bondo work.  Plenty of it.  Then I have to try to match the paint!

Her problems were 1) not knowing how to corner harder 2) not knowing how to straighten up and stop, 3) not realizing she shouldn't try to get back on the road.

This was her second high side - first a result of a dog hitting her rear wheel hard on her bicycle (big dog).  That one she handled better, landing pretty well considering she was cleated in.  Broke her cheek bone back under her eye, deep abrasions, torn ligaments in thumbs.

These high side falls are pretty dang tough on people.

i see all the older guys(and some young ones) in t-shirts and no helmet...cooler temperature yes, but doesn't save your skin!

i like having as many things possible in my favor, armor is one of those things!!

Just my $0.01 on the issue:

1- defensive riding to avoid a hard stop/emergency situation should be the #1 goal.

2- practice practice practice emergency situations.  You have more options than braking, so practice the braking and swerving.

3- specifically to rear brake.  Police motorcycle training actually teaches the opposite of MSF: to release the rear brake if it locks up.  However, the important difference is that they teach their riders to understand almost instantly when the rear wheel locks up so they can release and reapply before it gets out of control.  They practice going "past the limit" hundreds of times.  As discussed earlier, if you release early enough you have very little chance to be thrown.  Most riders don't realize quickly that their rear tire is locked, so releasing it is VERY dangerous.  Obviously MSF has to assume you don't know quickly enough that you locked your tire, so some road rash is a better option that launching yourself from the bike.

It's actually possible not to know the rear wheel is sliding until it goes sideways a bit.  Can happen pretty gradually.  I thought about that today and tried out various braking patterns.   A quick jab makes the slide obvious, but I can pop both brakes on and as the weight transfers the rear wheel will just quietly break loose and start to skate.  Letting off braking pressure gives me a tiny wobble at the worst, but if I stay on the brake for more than a tiny bit I start to get some yaw and have a tremendous urge to keep it sliding and crank on the front brake!

But I'm used to riding 18.5 lb machines at a good clip.  On our country roads, I rarely get the motorbike up to the speeds I hit on downhills on the pedalbike.  Something I find pretty funny!  Oddly, the sensation of rear wheel slip initiation seems pretty similar.  Rather than noise, a sudden gentle loss of connection.  On the motorbike, I have ear plugs in anyway.  In addition to not having the best hearing.

I'd sure like to take a motorcycle cop training program.  I don't feel nearly trained up enough on a motorbike.  I might never feel trained enough.

And my wife is really OK.  She's just klutzy.  When I got her as a replacement for a defective one (the homicidal bent was worrying - at least I only got a limp and a bit of brain damage . . . .), she'd already broken her neck in a horse accident and fractured her skull in a car wreck.  In the nearly 20 years she's been hanging around she has hurt herself falling down stairs (knee surgery), walking (just needed stitches & crutches), gardening (scratched cornea), cooking (knife cuts, burns, dropping heavies), packing goods (paper cut on the eye), and cycling (high side from a dog hitting the rear wheel - titanium plate in her face, some brain damage, torn ligaments in her thumbs).  And now the scooter wreck just did abrasions and a sore wrist.  Pretty good.  Really, can't her walk away from a serious road mistake with no skin loss.  

Of course she had to trash MY riding gear!  My mesh jacket is really impressive.  I wore it until I got a new one a couple of days ago.

Funny, she's really a beautiful bicyclist.  

She's promised to take the basic motorcycle course before getting on a motorbike again.  I found a place she can train on a Blast.  After that, I think she can try the S40.  I got one with some miles and a few dings in part so I could let her try it.  Would have a hard time letting her ride a creampuff . . . .  

Another path to highsiding is to scrape a peg, then recoil up while letting off the throttle.  I see people try this up on the Dragon when I bicycle up there.  Never a local, always a flatlander up in the mountains. They get a terrifying wobble and the radius opens up, which can be a serious thing on a curvy road.