[tomp]

I don't bench that often, but I do it without a spotter or safety gear. I use normal grip (not the thumbless "suicide" grip), never go to failure, do medium-low weight/medium-high reps (8-12), and most importantly, I don't lock the weights, so worst comes to worst, I can always just tilt the bar and drop the weights...

[timClicks]

If the worst comes to worst, push the bar down to your belly. You have saved your neck this way, giving yourself the chance to tilt the bar in a controlled manner after a breath. If you are already failing, tilting the bar might be too much without more O2

[tomp]

Sure, but "failure" isn't "dropping the bar on your throat"... that would be catastrophic failure that shouldn't really happen (and not even a spotter could save you). When I lift, "failure" is usually just "can't lift the bar to the top" so there's more than enough strength to lower it a bit to tilt it...