Is there a safer way to crash?

Not crash.

You should go all limp and relax. Apparently if you are super relaxed when you crash, you won't sustain any injuries.

Or maybe I saw that in a film.

full ragdoll: extend all your limbs and let them go limp, so as you cartwheel down the mountain you willl have "limb shox", which protects vital organs. Also, helps to have a drink of some strong spirits mid-air as you get ejected from your vessel.

It worked pretty well for me once. In a car crash though. In a Subaru on a dirt road, realize there's a huge farm truck coming straight at me, on my side of the road around a blind turn. I remembered hearing that formula 1 racers take their hands off the steering wheel before a crash so as not to break their arms. So after taking fruitless evasive action I just put my hands in my lap before head on impact. My arms were fine. But my knee hit the dash board and broke. Next time I'll take my hands off the wheel and pull my seatbelt tighter.

Another time, actually bike related this time... I had been doing this thing at the jumps where I'd get super whipped and just a bit nosed down, then hold it and land on my front tire first, letting gravity straighten the bike out as I rolled down the landing on the front tire. After a week away, I did it again without checking my tire pressures. I landed on my front tire and quickly realized that my front tire was folding and I was gonna crash. So in that split second I thought about how I should crash. I was going down on my side, so should I tuck my arm under me and curl up in a ball? Or should I spread out my weight and relax into the crash? I did the latter. Slapped down on my side fully extended to distribute the load with a broken pinky toe as my only seeming injury. Hopped up and kept riding. Later that week though a pain in my side just kept getting worse. It turns out I had severely bruised my spleen.

Tuck and roll!

Millions of years of evolution have taught us to put our arms out to ward off an impact. I don't know, I broke my wrist like that in a motorcycle crash once and I'm sure I'd have been fine if I just balled up. (The bike landed on my outstretched arm and bent my wrist backward.)
Every crash is different though, and I'd rather have a broken wrist than the spleen injury that Big Bird mentioned! I'm going to keep putting my arms out.

Crashing is a learned skill. Easy to learn and rather consequence-free if you are a child. Learning as a adult, haha

If you didn't grow up with a jack-ass brother, crashing GTs (a snow-sled for those who don't know), wrestling, taking your bike off ramps, and playing contacts sports, you're likely screwed in the event of a crash.

In a real crash, there is no time to think. It's muscle memory.

Last time I crashed I put my arms out and had a dislocated shoulder as a result.

Next time (hopefully not) would still be pulling my arms out again. LOL (guess that's how my instinct works.)