I'd agree but then at today's flattish Stage 6 the road went from 5-lane freeway width to a single cow path with ditches on the side. No one died but that sort of transition with 180+ riders is asking for carnage. On the other hand, same stage; one rider crashed himself twice in 10km. He still finished but that was all creatively solo crashishness.I think a lot of the crashes are like Mcnulty's or touch of wheels. Riders looking behind to see where their teammates are and losing tracking of what's on the front and sides. I doubt much could be done to prevent these type of crashes as this is clearly rider issue. The 2nd crash in stage 1 caused by rider touching wheels was just as bad as the first one but the spectator one is preventable and receives the max attention. Yet the max number of crashes is due to riders doing stuff as in this tdf. You can put the max effort in preventing spectator related crashes but it is not going to reduce crashes significantly. Data on crashes would be helpful to analyse the cause and potential solutions(UCI's job).
Finally and while the pace was flying there was the choice the Alpecin douchemeister made when running out of road as it narrowed: head-butt the rider next to him in the arm so they both crashed. I'm looking to the referees throwing that wanker out of the race.
When that all happens it's surely hard to define the separation of stupid riding and stupid race courses.