I have 180,000 miles/16 years of crash-free riding experience (not for lack of trying - my chicken strips are almost nonexistent, and my peg feelers have “touchdown” marks on them), so I hope my voice carries some weight. Rather than copy/paste, I’ll refer you to the advice I offered in a similar thread three years ago, which should cover most of what you asked about.
Purists and track riders will argue that a skilled, experienced rider can decelerate more rapidly without ABS than with. While this may be true when running laps ad nauseam on a very familiar track, it’s probably not true for a rider in an “oh shit” situation on public roads with uncertain/variable traction conditions. My advice is to get the ABS model. ABS is fairly “transparent,” i.e. it doesn’t come into play until you’ve screwed up (which is exactly when you need it). On a bike without ABS, it’s difficult to safely explore the traction limits of the tires: if you lock up the front wheel, you have to react very quickly (by releasing the brake) to avoid a crash. On a bike with ABS, when you explore braking limits you’ll feel when the ABS kicks in, and you’ll come to develop a gut feel for just how much traction you have (without having ever crashed). The ABS also gives you the confidence to brake hard when it’s necessary; accident stats show that many riders lock up the rear wheel and underbrake the front wheel prior to collision, so this (viscerally knowing your traction limits) is a critically important thing.
A few other bits of advice:
There’s always going to be some idiot out there who doesn’t see you no matter what you do, but you can minimize the frequency of this by making yourself highly visible. That means staying out of blind spots, and it also means being brightly colored/well-lit. Every rider has a subjective threshold where conspicuity crosses from “sensible” to “clownish,” but the opposite extreme - a rider in black on a small black bike with a single dim headlight - is asking for trouble. I’m on a big bike (BMW R1200RT) with yellow Motolights on the fork, large hi-viz sticker panels on the rear faces of my luggage, and I wear a hi-viz yellow riding jacket and white helmet; it’s very rare that someone who has me in their field of view doesn’t see me (though I still get idiots who don’t check their mirrors before changing lanes).
This is excellent news. If you get to know what you and your bike are capable of (not just braking as described earlier, but also turning/swerving), and make it a point to practice these things so they become second-nature, then you’ll automatically do them when trouble arises. Please note, however, that the MSF’s Basic Rider Course is…pretty basic. Even their Experienced Rider Course is pretty basic. If you really want to learn the details of how to get a bike around a turn with the widest margin of safety - that is, if you want to learn *what you should be practicing - * save up some cash and take a track-based course from Keith Code or Reg Pridmore. The track is a great place to learn because you don’t have to worry about traffic or cops, and there are fewer things to hit if you do crash; you can really concentrate on learning how to ride.
Group rides: Urbanredneck touched on this. The mantra between my friends and me is “ride your own ride.” Know the limits of your own abilities, and don’t exceed them; do not feel compelled to keep up (or compete) with your riding buddies. I was on a group ride once where three other riders reflexively followed the leader who was passing other vehicles - and when the leader merged back into a space big enough for just him, the other riders were stuck in the oncoming lane with nowhere to go. They managed to eventually find a gap to merge into further back, but it could have been bad if there had been oncoming traffic. If they hadn’t been so hellbent on sticking with their leader and so laser-focused on his whereabouts (as opposed to the rest of the traffic situation), they might have taken more time to evaluate whether it was safe for them to pass with him. It’s OK if the guy in front of you gets a mile ahead, you’ll catch up to him eventually - especially if he’s agreed to wait for you at the next turn. Similarly, my brother was once trail-riding with a friend who was a much better rider. My brother felt compelled to keep up and rode past his abilities; he missed a hillside curve and crashed head-first into the opposite side of a ravine, resulting in a compression fracture of a thoracic vertebra and a ride in an air ambulance (thankfully no spinal cord injury). If he had ridden his own ride, this probably wouldn’t have happened.
One final thing: weaving in your lane really does help to prevent SMIDSY crashes.
