The classic Laurier Avenue moment

This morning I was on the Laurier lane, riding along at a reasonable speed (I don't go particularly fast on Laurier for all the obvious reasons) and approaching a green light at Metcalfe.

Just as I reached the intersection, a blond woman, probably in her forties, in an SUV, turned directly across the lane. No turning signal, no warning. I hit the brakes and screamed, "STOP! STOP!!" at her. I heard a couple of the pedestrians on the corner scream too - distinctly. I don't think I've ever heard another person scream like that before except in movies. There were screams all around me and the side of a bluish-grey vehicle right in front of me.

I came to a stop inches from her car: she continued around the corner without even looking in my direction. I couldn't even be sure she'd heard me scream. She must have; but I saw no sign of it.

I remember looking through the whole car at her and, oddly, thinking how far away from me she looked, separated from me by the side of the car, the passenger seat, the huge wide cabin space. She looked like she was twenty feet away from me and very small behind the wheel. Insulated from everything.

Her car passed, and I kept biking because I needed to get to work, I didn't have a license plate, she hadn't actually hit me, and there was no point in reporting it.

I wasn't the only one to go through this on Laurier today.

I guarantee I wasn't.

We have got to do better than this.