Almost all of that sounds like your bikes are too heavy. (See my other post for how to check fit.)
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If you let it go all the way down then yes, of course it counts as a drop, but please re-read the post, it’s how you check to see if it’s too heavy for you. If you’re worried you can’t handle the weight then you already know the answer, (or get a foam pad if you want to confirm anyway).
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I was honestly wondering if riding in a group or pack helps with more eyes to spot hazards and keeping formation, or if it results in more peer pressure or more chances to accidentally collide. With bicycles it seems to be more the latter in my anecdotal experience.
It seems that every group has at least one or two idiots. If you’re “with the group” it’s harder to avoid them. 
The study supports roomwithaview’s observation, below, that some people have these incidents WAY more than others. It’s sad that the summary of the study doesn’t note this one key fact:
45 of the 100 drivers had NO “crash or near-crash” incidents at all. None. So just over half the drivers account for all of the drops, crashes and other incidents in the study, while the other half had no problems whatsoever.
Also, 1 driver had a crash once every 250 miles! And one had a crash every 500 miles. One of the drivers accounted for 13 of the 150 incidents. So nearly 10% of the incidents were caused by this 1% of drivers.
Given all this, it’s simply not a fair takeaway to assume that all or even most drivers commonly drop their bikes or even commonly have any incidents at all. The more accurate takeaway is that some drivers have lots of problems riding, some drivers have some problems riding (average 1 incident every 5,000 miles) and nearly half of all drivers will have no problems or very seldom have any problems (less than 1 every 10,000 miles at least).
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In my defense, I was new to the circus and was out sick on the day of training.
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Haven’t dropped the current one or the previous one.
The one before that hit the dirt several times, but that was because I made a habit of treating it (a heavy BMW tourer) as if it were a motorcross bike; all of the drops were at walking pace in extreme mud or sand.
Before that, I used to drop my GPz750 while parking fairly regularly, because it was much too tall and heavy for me. Forget flat-footing, I was limited to one toe on the ground on that thing.
I’ve had a couple fling themselves over the sidestand while parked on a slope with too much luggage strapped on, too.
The only one I ever actually crashed was my first bike. One mountain road cornering fuckup at speed (due to inexperience), one racetrack oopsie (while attempting to correct that inexperience).
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I’ve never dropped my two bikes, despite them weighing 3000 lbs, rolling slowly on ice, fast on gravel, or even sleeping in it while parked.
Wait, do I have a car? Somebody tell me if this is a car.
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I suspect a lot of the contrast is weekend warriors vs regular riders. I do about 20,000km/year; the bikes are my only transport.
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Sure it’s not a sick quad?
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Yeah that’s what I assumed too, but the average person in the study drove almost 10,000 miles in a year. The guy who had one incident every 500 miles rode over 5,000 miles during the period of the study (thus accounting for 10 of the accidents). So there must be other factors.
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It’s loud and smells a bit. Very quadish. But I stay dry when it rains. Carish. Rarely swallow bugs while in motion, so hard to really tell.
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Drugs?
My controls theory professor specialized in bike stability. He built several non-gyroscopic bikes (counter-rotating wheels) and demonstrated that the gyroscopic effect is a minor part of stability. Steering keeps you upright. The math, which I pointedly avoided, supposedly backs this up.
The same math apparently also correctly predicts the upper speed for motorcycles beyond which they become unstable, at least when controlled by humans.
I never once dropped my Corvair. Take that, Ralph Nader!
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Thus speaks someone with the privilege of above-average size and strength.
The only bike I’ve ever owned that I could double-flatfoot was my first one, a 250cc cruiser. Following your guidelines, I’d have spent the last twenty years [1] largely limited to scooters. Instead, it’s been a mix of sportsbikes, tourers and adventure tourers, mostly around the 700cc mark. On most of them, it was very much a case of one foot or the other.
Fortunately, however, you don’t need to flatfoot a bike. Just get competent at slow riding, clutch control and reading the road.
[1] Everyday rider, never broken a bone or spilt a drop of blood.
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Well I have been riding for 50 years and I have not dropped one yet (on road that is).
Been riding over 30 years, including a few years of year round commuting, and I’ll take zero speed drops over at-speed incidents any day.
I had three, including the very first turn I ever attempted, where my dad laughed so hard he couldn’t help pick it up.
The second was at the base of a driveway on wet leaves. A car was coming and I had to stop or die. I defy you to keep upright with your front wheel sliding on wet leaves.
The third was the most embarrassing. U-turn on a very steep, very cambered, very narrow road. Stopped at the apex of the turn and fell on the downhill side. Stupid error. And two of my friends were riding with me to help pick it up and never let me forget it.
No injuries in any of those, unless you count wounded pride and some scratches on the bikes.
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If everyone walks away it was a good accident.
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I only rode for about two years, but I (1) dropped my bike while trying to do figure 8s like the ones we learned in the safety course and (2) dropped it again when a guy tried to make a left turn out of a parking lot in front of me while I was doing maybe 10 mph through downtown Golden, CO. The insurance company said I probably could have avoided the latter one if I’d been a better-skilled rider, and on later reflection I suspect they got that one right.
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