Oak, so sorry about your crash. I had missed the first mention of it, I do hope you mend quickly. Please don't beat yourself up, people should not be driving a vehicle without proper lights. Yes it's probably smart to consider practicing panic braking.

Hope you are healing quickly, I just can't imagine the horror of going head first over the handlebars....makes me shudder to think of flying through the air like that. Yikes! You're fortunate to have escaped a more serious injury than what you already have.