I had good gear and good boots. The damage was caused by me instinctively putting my leg down while the bike was falling. That’s what snapped my knee. The nerve damage was because the pointy part of the tank (it extends outwards a bit at the top) landed directly on the side of my knee. I’m pretty sure having the riding pants with armor is what kept me from further damage as my kneecap was the first thing to land.
Went for a motorcycle ride when it was 12 degrees fahrenheit. I was warm with some heated gear, but I was on my Street Triple with Pirelli Rosso III tires. I stopped at a store for a while and didn’t think about the tires being cold. Gave it a bit too much throttle when leaving and the rear end slid at about 15 MPH. My leg went down first and it snapped my left MCL. I could barely walk for a month as it healed and had to go through physical therapy. My leg is solid now, but there’s some nerve damage from the bike landing on my leg, which decides to make itself known occasionally.
There are rare cases where full volume is necessary, but definitely not for the vast majority of people. For example, my phone is set to about 50% ringer volume, but I’m also on-call for work sometimes and I have that phone constantly set to 100% so I know that I’ll hear it in any circumstance. It also only goes off once every couple of months or so and not constantly.