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All true. I did pizza delivery when I was 16 and had so many crashes it's impossible to remember them. All my fault and never (fortunately) involving other vehicles. Aside from pinballing a bike down a narrow street after falling on black ice.
Motorcycle couriering was worse as I had to pay my own insurance - from memory, between 800 and sixteen hundred quid a year for various bikes from a C90 up. I don't know how guys do it these days - I was earning minimum 120quid a day, cash in hand in 1996 and from what I hear, rates have barely shifted since. If you're in central London be prepared to start looking like a heavily kohled chimney sweep...it's a dirty business, even if getting paid to thrash a bike around was seriously good fun for a bit.
Spot on with the knee protection - they take more of a battering in most falls than any other body part.
Jung-
Hard won experience about knees. I've just had the last stitches out of mine and still can't bend my leg past 45 degrees. That's 2 weeks after the operation to clean the gravel out of it. It's easy to get casual about leg protection because it's a bitch if you're not on the bike all day but knees are complicated and take time to fix so I'll be looking after mine from now on.
I'm happy I did the Pizza delivery despite the accidents, some fun times. Not sure I'd want to do it again though.
Airhead
The rate of accidents and damages to yourself and own vehicles is very high, especially in the winter. I did a few months of Pizza delivery in winter many years ago and always saw it as a good omen if one of my early evening deliveries was to a hospital, as I was guessing I'd be going there sometime on the shift. They only need one claim per year to wipe out that £1100. If you break it down to 3 months at around £400 it's probably a good deal as you could easily have a low speed off and claim £400 for a scooter, if you get it wedged under a £100k car in Central London it's likely to cost £4k minimum.
There were cons with bikes getting stolen while delivering, people not paying, probably one accident a week, one every 2 days in the ice. Used to just gaffer tape the bikes. I remember pointing out the tax on the bikes had expired and the guys just shrugged. I'm guessing a lot of places are not properly insured either and a lot of drivers were illegal immigrants so they weren't going to start any claims.
It was the wild west, whether it's improved I don't know but make sure you are wearing proper protective gear, should be full face helmet, 3mm leather trousers and knee pads, decent top jacket with back protection and solid gloves. You can survive most low sides in that and still deliver, just don't go under the oncoming traffic. I crashed more doing that job than in 30 years of normal biking.
I always tip food delivery drivers now.