I was hauling ass down a one-way, two-lane street in the bike lane (shoulder). A woman in a sedan pulled in from a side street on the left, crossed into the right lane, then swerved across my lane to make a right turn into a shopping plaza.
I had no vector for escape, it was too sudden. I believed I would go through her right rear window and wind up in the car. Instead, the bicycle and I slammed laterally against her car and flew forward at her angle, my sternum striking her passenger-side mirror. As it happened, I thought it would kill me, but the mirror just exploded into a hundred pieces.
I landed on the ground with my bike next to her now-stopped vehicle, solar plexus aching but otherwise almost unharmed.
She was very apologetic. She said she had many friends who were cyclists, and she was aghast at the idea of hurting any of them. She told me if I was unhurt, and agreed not to request the police, she would happily absorb the damage to her vehicle (it was really badly damaged by my bike scraping over 4 feet of her paint).
After I caught my breath and realized I was unharmed, I told her it was a fair cop and we were good. But I will definitely never forget the terror I felt as I slammed into her.
I've had many close calls like that, but fortunately have avoided collision. Drivers saying that they are "really pro-cycling" or whatnot means little to me now. If they were, you'd see it in their actions. That's not to say that mistakes don't happen, but "mistakes" happen so frequently to cyclists that it's hard to conclude anything other than that most drivers don't understand how to drive safely with cyclists on the road. Good intentions are not enough to be "pro-cycling" in my view.
For what it's worth, I would have called the police and requested an ambulance and I recommend the same for every bike crash, no matter how minor. (And I would have made it clear that the driver would be paying for all medical costs.) It helps make the police's statistics accurate, and adrenaline may prevent you from seeing how hurt you really are. Best to play it safe. I'd like to underline the importance of keeping the statistics accurate. I've talked to a city traffic engineer about how one intersection was dangerous and they said they weren't going to do anything about it because they received no reports of crashes there. I'm confident that they occur, but they're not reported to the city. Don't let being "nice" prevent safety improvements.