I don't wear one and I'd say 90% of the people in my area don't either. I guess it depends a lot on the area you ride in. Slides where we ride are a rare occurrence. If I rode in wide open, steep mostly treeless area's I probably would. Life has risks, you choose which ones you can live with and which ones you can't. Do you guys wear your avy gear when driving up the mountain? Why not you could be hit by one. Maybe you need to watch some videos of avalanches going over hiways
Having ridden in several western states before moving to the wet side of WA, I've noticed the same. Less people here ride with beacons than CO, WY, AK. Not that it's right, but the risk IS less in a lot of areas here in WA for several reasons. Trees are so thick in a lot of spots you can't even p!ss thru them. Snowpack is wet, heavy and usually bonded together by the rain that inevitably hits about every storm. That said, there was a big slide at Stampede a couple years ago and chutes still slide all the time.
I don't get to ride much. Avg maybe 300mi/year over the years, and have seen, or set off many smaller slides and seen a few big ones in action. That tells me its REAL.
I wouldn't even remotely consider not having a beacon and picked up an airbag pack a couple years ago ($400 closeout, pretty cheap insurance).
And if you're riding where it's open at all and good dry snow, avy's happen ALL the time and not always where you'd expect. Can ask the kid named Justin who got buried in Grand Mesa several years ago when we were up there.
Was too much fresh snow for the family to ride, stuck at the lodge. Me n some guys were out getting stuck near the lodge playing around. Came back to running out to a rescue (guy was dug out, but in shock, sled trashed, etc). They were just breaking trail on a main road/trail and a not so huge hill piled up on the second of 3 riders. First guy didn't see it and kept going until he saw no one behind him. Second guy got tossed next/under his sled. 3rd guy didn't see him get buried but knew right where he was because he ran over the buried sled and the dudes helmet riding through the debris only seconds later. Everything turned out fine, but it drives the point home.
And my 9 year old who was about 3 at the time remembers it vividly, the commotion, crying etc in the lodge and to this day is super paranoid of big hills/slopes even though he loves to ride!