Actually, that is not true. I work for a Fortune 500 Company and I wear blue jeans almost every day. In fact, many of the other big companies around my office do as well: Google, Amazon, Fitbit, etc. Not all of us can wear blue jeans to the office but in the Bay Area many of us can. Besides, many people don't work in offices anyway.
I completely agree on the armor point. No one is going to wear blue jeans with armor because you would just wear proper motorcycle pants if that were the case. Should anyone wear Kevlar blue jeans on the highway? Nope, that pushes the limits of their ability to even prevent road rash (the only thing they provide protection against). But for around town they have a function. We can't be dressed like gladiators for every coffee shop stop, errand, etc.
You're stretching the context way past the breaking point. If you want to look "nice", for example in a business meeting or impress someone with your sense of fashion and style, none of the motorcycle safe jeans are going to cut it. The ones that have enough kevlar in them to actually protect against a slide get pretty stiff and tend to look awkward. If they contain armor, you've gotta either take them off to get them out of the inner armor, or there's gonna be a pretty visible knee zipper where it comes out, or hilariously bulgy knees.
Yes, many bay area offices are totally fine with people wearing anything from board shorts on up, but at that point, you can get away with wearing whatever, so the choice of clothes becomes moot.
Also, freeway rides aren't really the place where you crash - the vast majority of crashes take place in intersections, which are conveniently missing on most freeways. The idea that you need more gear for freeway riding is missing the point, the chances of a crash on the freeway are significantly lower. From the hurt report:
Intersections are the most likely place for the motorcycle accident, with the other vehicle violating the motorcycle right-of-way, and often violating traffic controls.
On the speed of crashes:
The median pre-crash speed was 29.8 mph, and the median crash speed was 21.5 mph, and the one-in-a-thousand crash speed is approximately 86 mph.
Freeways are higher severity, but have significantly lower risk of an accident taking place, and the increase in severity is arguable, given the low speed of most crashes.
Also worth noting:
Half of the injuries to the somatic regions were to the ankle-foot, lower leg, knee, and thigh-upper leg.
So basically, your legs take a beating in any accident, as your knees are oftentimes the first thing to hit the ground from the initial fall off the bike (which usually does a large chunk of the damage, ref. helmet design), and you're quite likely to get your foot jammed under the bike.
The fact is you're stepping into the gladiator ring every time you go out, if you gear up or not. Your risk is higher around town, and lower on the freeway, so making the assumption that you're not in a high risk situation cause you're just "running errands" is completely in opposition to the facts.
One last point here, the goal of any safety gear is to protect as effectively as possible against the reasonable majority of accidents - that means your street gear should be designed around roughly ~25mph crashes, focused on the best possible defense of low speed impacts. Those wearing traditional race leathers on the street are also missing the point to some degree, as you're highly unlikely to slide for the sort of distance that would cause wear through on a set of leathers, most leather is race inspired, very slim fit, and as a result has hard armor with minimal impact reduction qualities, as you're highly unlikely to impact things on the track. Noteable exception: Helimot, which contains no hard armor, and is significantly bulkier/heavier than most normal race suits.
On the flip side, textile gear with massive amounts of coverage thanks to giant soft armor pockets is pretty much ideal for street crashes, where you're highly likely to impact road debris, botts dots, or cars at a reasonable low, survivable speed. Textiles can actually be a superior choice around town, especially if you reduce overall risk of injury by wearing them when you wouldn't otherwise wear gear due to social reasons.
if I could, I would.
