Save your skin! Buy the gear!

If it weren't for good gear, I would have a lot less skin and a lot more casts and braces today. Alert riding and knowing the limits of your bike and your own skills are definitely the two most key factors in rider safety. But for most riders, a day will come where those are not enough to keep both wheels on the road. If and/or when that happens, you are going to want something durable and protective between you and the asphalt. This is where the motorcycling community splits in two.
On one side lies the DIY crowd, who disdain the very notion of shelling out extra bucks for expensive (over-priced in their mind) gear when cheaper solutions exist. Often seen riding in Home Depot work gloves, thick military jackets, and construction boots, they save tons of cash. Unfortunately, these items tend to lose their toughness when being drug across pavement an unreasonable speeds. No matter the cost savings, inadequate equipment is rarely helpful in a road crash.
Gear geeks don't save money, but do save skin and bones. Though motorcycle equipment is notoriously over-priced, it makes up for this in its ability to truly protect you when you fall. My wreck could have been much, much worse had I not been wearing leather, gloves, and heavy duty boots when I went down. My jeans simply did not stand up to the asphalt, and ended up extremely torn up and ripped apart. They offered me far less protection than all of my legitimate gear. My ankles in particular would have been rolled, twisted or even broken without proper boots to keep them safe.
Undoubtedly, though, it was wearing a helmet that accounts for my being able to write this today. Had it not been for my brain bucket, I would likely have been killed, brain damaged, or in serious amounts of pain, given the intense scratching and dents along its surface. Riders have a choice with equipment, and especially with helmets- but riders who crash out are unlikely to value their cheap substitutions as much when they prepare to get back on the cycle. And riders who crash without helmets rarely have the opportunity or desire to ride again.