bicycle chains don't snap unless they are ridden beyond their service life, fitted incorrectly, subject to forces they aren't designed for or come from the bad batch of CN-6700s
Fixed.
Here's my 2c: I drive around W1 all day, so I get to see a lot of brakeless riders. They are invariably forced to ride slower than people with proper road legal bicycles, while putting in more effort. Occasionally they bump into things like vehicles, people or kerbs because they can't stop fast enough. Running into the back of cars in traffic is funny (to the audience) and mostly harmless. The maximum deceleration of a bicycle with enough front brake on it to lift the back wheel is about 0.6g; the weight distribution makes any more than that tun into an endo. Very ordinary road cars have been capable of about 1.0g for 30 years, and now they can all do it all the time thanks to ABS, EBD, Emergency Brake Assist, and tyres which grip well even on damp tarmac. The pedestrians can't be trusted not to step off the kerb without looking, and the roads are sometimes quite narrow, so if you're following a car which does an emergency stop, your choice is the kerb, the car, or the oncoming traffic. With proper brakes operated by levers on the bit of the handlebar you're actually holding, it's fairly easy to ride in a position where you can stop before you have to choose between these 3 equally unattractive fates. With no brake other than your fixed wheel, you have much less than half the available deceleration and you may have travelled fifteen feet or more before the emergent situation is communicated into the requisite reversal of leg force coincident with the necessary crank angle. Genuinely to ride in traffic with sufficient space to account for these colossal shortcomings would require that you always keep a clear 5v yards behind the vehicle in front, where v is the speed in mph. It is not enough to create this space, you also have to maintain that huge open area by successfully blocking any cars which would overtake to fill up the yawning chasm.
Nothing about having proper working brakes on your bicycle forces you to abandon the situational awareness which you hope (usually wrongly) that you have perfected and think (always wrongly) will invariably save you and others from the perils of reckless drivers and pedestrians. Neither will having brakes diminish the dimensions of your wedding tackle, which seems to be the main fear of the morons who continue to ride dangerous and illegal bicycles, when it comes right down to it.
Fixed.
Here's my 2c: I drive around W1 all day, so I get to see a lot of brakeless riders. They are invariably forced to ride slower than people with proper road legal bicycles, while putting in more effort. Occasionally they bump into things like vehicles, people or kerbs because they can't stop fast enough. Running into the back of cars in traffic is funny (to the audience) and mostly harmless. The maximum deceleration of a bicycle with enough front brake on it to lift the back wheel is about 0.6g; the weight distribution makes any more than that tun into an endo. Very ordinary road cars have been capable of about 1.0g for 30 years, and now they can all do it all the time thanks to ABS, EBD, Emergency Brake Assist, and tyres which grip well even on damp tarmac. The pedestrians can't be trusted not to step off the kerb without looking, and the roads are sometimes quite narrow, so if you're following a car which does an emergency stop, your choice is the kerb, the car, or the oncoming traffic. With proper brakes operated by levers on the bit of the handlebar you're actually holding, it's fairly easy to ride in a position where you can stop before you have to choose between these 3 equally unattractive fates. With no brake other than your fixed wheel, you have much less than half the available deceleration and you may have travelled fifteen feet or more before the emergent situation is communicated into the requisite reversal of leg force coincident with the necessary crank angle. Genuinely to ride in traffic with sufficient space to account for these colossal shortcomings would require that you always keep a clear 5v yards behind the vehicle in front, where v is the speed in mph. It is not enough to create this space, you also have to maintain that huge open area by successfully blocking any cars which would overtake to fill up the yawning chasm.
Nothing about having proper working brakes on your bicycle forces you to abandon the situational awareness which you hope (usually wrongly) that you have perfected and think (always wrongly) will invariably save you and others from the perils of reckless drivers and pedestrians. Neither will having brakes diminish the dimensions of your wedding tackle, which seems to be the main fear of the morons who continue to ride dangerous and illegal bicycles, when it comes right down to it.