"Oh Shit" moments...

=D

Physics. The amount of force he'd hit the floor with from that height is alot more than you'd think. And no suspension = all force through his arms and legs = knees buckle and he plants himself against his bike.

Using a landing ramp transfers your downward momentum into forward momentum, just enough that you can stay on the bike, with a load of suspension.

Well, as someone's already pointed out, it was shot with a wide lens, which exaggerates distances. You get used to the false sense of height when you've looked at thousands of wide angle BMX photos over a couple of decades.

Not only that, but you can clearly see that he's travelling downhill, and would have landed on a downhill bit of road had he not bailed. Hence no need for a landing ramp. If there had been a normal landing ramp there it would have been a bit too steep to land on.

I've had much harder landings myself and lived to tell the tale, and I've seen other riders land from much higher, onto flat ground. I think the guy in the photo bailed because he was scared, or lost control - which could have happened on any type of ramp setup.