It’s happened to me… twice.
One time I broke my ankle, one time I broke my collar bone.
I was a kid both times. Once when I was riding my bicycle (that looked something like this) home from the swimming pool; so I was probably 10 or 12 years old. I bolted through an intersection and got drilled by a car who didn’t see me.
Second time I was 16 or 17, riding my bike to my before-school job and I zipped through an intersection and got drilled by a car who didn’t see me. 
They’ll run you down even if you are stopped at an intersection. I was stopped at a traffic light in the right hand lane. A Caddy pulled up and made a rolling right hand turn. Fucker.
I was smacked down by a turning car while I was on my way to middle school one day. The car stopped, and the driver watched in amazement as I sprang upright and climbed back on my bike and left.
By the second hour of the day I was feeling the aches and asked to go to the nurse. When I told the teacher why she escorted me to the office and had them call the police. Turns out my knee was bleeding pretty badly and there was a dark spreading stain on my jeans leg from the blood.
The next time I was hit I manged to do it better, landing splayed out and face down on the car’s hood with my face up against the windshield. I suggest this maneuver for style points if you can pull it off.
I shouldn’t giggle but I did.
Thanks, Anaamika. It can definitely be a crapshoot. Sometimes I wonder if the recklessness of some cyclists is a perverse survival mechanism – you’re already invisible to everyone else on the road, you may as well be fast. 
For myself, though, I think I’m just going to start avoiding that part of downtown Seattle as much as possible; it seems to be just full of dodgy intersections and blithering, self-absorbed drivers too busy brushing their ponytails and sipping Starbucks while adjusting the socks under their birkenstocks to attend trivial matters like watching for oncoming traffic when making an unprotected left turn.
I will try this next time if I get the chance.
Where were you commuting from in Seattle? This is not a very bike friendly area. Well, pockets seem to be. Belleve certainly is NOT bike friendly.
glad you’re ok
I work downtown near 2nd and Seneca, and live in Fremont. The particular intersection where the incident occurred was Denny and Bell/9th. On the whole the area doesn’t seem too bad; there are some bike lanes and markings – but that particular intersection is probably more troublesome because of the angle at which Bell St. approaches it (I was riding on Bell St.). There’s also not usually a lot of traffic on that end of Bell St., whereas Denny is always busy, which might explain (but certainly doesn’t excuse) why the driver didn’t think to look for oncoming traffic.
Glad you are OK. If your helmet hit the ground at all, replace it.
I’m not even sure the light makes you more visible. I’ve been surprised how many motorcycle lights look like fixed lights in the distance. Even knowing I’m looking at a motorcycle they look this way.
The camera idea is a good one. Nobody remembers to get a plate number at the time. The one time I TRIED to get the plate # I couldn’t read it in time. I have successfully followed 2 people to get a plate number but that turns into a street race.
I ride assuming I’m completely invisible. I’ve had encounters with cars and would prefer not to have anymore. Kids don’t ride their bikes as much as when I was young so drivers aren’t use to seeing them. That and all the drivers playing with their phones.
Eh, I dunno. People have always been oblivious when it comes to bike riders. My dad got hit when he was a teen in 1960. That’s how he got one of his two big scars*. The car was one of those massive steel land yachts with a pointy metal hood ornament. The impact threw him up onto the hood and the ornament gouged a six inch gash in his thigh. Even back then the driver claimed he just didn’t see him.
I agree with you about people being distracted behind the wheel but they’re only as bad as they’ve ever been. Coffee, passengers, radios, yard sale :), there’s always a division of focus. Ride like the road is a game of tag and you’re always it.
Been there, oh yeah.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=365495&highlight=bicycle
I’m glad you’re OK.
Bos, I read your thread. Seven years later, whatever came of the lawsuit?
Wow – almost the same title, and somebody made exactly the same joke about it, too! I swear I didn’t plagiarize. 
I’m glad you didn’t become mashed potato, but I sure hope they catch that idiotic woman.
I won, by default. He never showed in court.
And then couldn’t collect–the old fart had whatever assets he had, including the car, in his kids’ or girlfriend’s name.
Not one nickel shall I ever see. 
??? kind of odd that someone would have their assets in someone else’s name. If he did that to avoid paying you then you should still be able to collect. I can’t cite case law but I know this has been dealt with in court before. Not sure how universal it is but there are laws against the practice. It’s essentially fraud.
But too small a sum to make it worthwhile.
According to my lawyer, we’d have to prove what was & wasn’t his. For a few hundred dollars of bike.
Nyet.
Welp, got word back from the bike shop today; turns out the damage was worse than I thought. The frame was bent out of alignment in addition to the bent wheels, and would have to be replaced; and once you add parts and labor for everything else, it was going to be probably over $1000 to repair, which was hardly worth it – so I ended up biting the bullet and buying a new bike. Quite a lot more expensive than I’d hoped. Bleh. Really wish I’d been able to get the chucklehead’s license plate. :mad:
Escaped from my last encounter with a car, but my front tire had been run over.
Well, actually, I’d gotten hit by a mini-van and flew over the handlebars, rolled, came up to face a half-dozen traumatized grade schoolers (a birthday party, it looked like). So I mimed an Olympic uneven bar landing, threw my arms out and sang “Ta-Daaaa!”. Threw my bike over my shoulder, and walked down to my bike shop…
…where they said “Oh, somebody taco’ed your wheel!”
THAT was the scariest part of the incident. The fact that so many bike wheels get run over by cars that they have a name for it.
I don’t know that a taco’d wheel only applies to ones that have been run over by a vehicle. I’ve taco’d my mtn bike wheel and no car was nearby.
I was hit last year (I was in a bike lane and a truck pulled over into it without checking his mirror). Thought I and the bike were fine so I told the guy no problem. I took off and everything was fine until I tried to change gears using rear derailleur which immediately snapped off. Grr.