I'm pedaling westward on College St., having blown by two other cyclists. My destination was the YMCA at Dovercourt and College to do something I've heard people call "exercise."

Slightly ahead of me is a green Chrysler convertible with a middle-aged couple in it.

Right in front of me, the driver does a right-hand turn across my lane -- without shoulder-checking, signalling or looking in his mirror.

"Buddy!" I yell, hitting the brakes.

Too late. My front wheel hits his fender and I'm catapulted onto his hood, where I roll off and land on the pavement.

The Ontario tele-health nurse tells me I should get checked out at the hospital -- primarily because I wasn't wearing a helmet at the time (more on that later).

Later ...

Well, that was a useless exercise!

I spoke with the triage nurse at the hospital's emergency ward for a bit. She told me they'd be happy to check me out, but it would be a three to four-hour wait.

Since I didn't feel any acute pain anywhere (although I'm probably gonna be a sore puppy come Tuesday morning) or any dizziness, nausea or blurred vision (possible concussion signs), I decided to just visit my family doctor in the morning.

On my way out, the nurse tells me -- with a smile on her face and a slightly judgmental edge in her voice: "Oh, and get a helmet."

I was on my way out of the emergency ward, but I stopped, turned, looked at her with a fixed stare and asked in a very flat tone: "How would that have stopped the driver from making a right-hand turn right in front of me?"

"Well, it wouldn't," she sputtered, but added it would protect my head the next time.

Gee. Thanks for the tip. The thought hadn't otherwise been running through my mind.

For the record, I do have a helmet: a Louis Garneau ... that's a piece of shit because the back adjustment strap keeps falling off. As a result, I wasn't wearing it tonight.

Getting back to the tele-tubby nurse, would she have advised I go to the hospital if I had been wearing a helmet?

Why did she ask almost no head-injury related questions and lots about my back and kidneys? Can anyone recommend a kidney helmet?

Anyways, when I got home, I spoke with my family doctor.

When I told him about the tele-tubby nurse, he snorted and said, "don't bother."

The whole reason I called the tele-tubby was to see whether I should bother going to the hospital, whose emergency wards tend to be overrun these days. My doctor was right -- I shouldn't have bothered.

All the tele-tubby was doing was reading questions from a checklist. She was probably only more marginally qualified than me to make a decision about whether I needed to visit the hospital or not.

Good Samaritans

Lots of people saw the accident, and some were quite nice.

A restaurant on that corner offered me a  chair and a big bottle of chilled Evian water, gratis.

Now, to make myself look like a totally ungrateful asshole, I will observe that with some people, there's always a quid pro quo -- sort of like a Christian mission soup kitchen: If you wanna bowl, gotta listen to a message about your soul.

One person said, almost smugly, that she never rides a bike on College, then goes into this story about how some friend of hers got run over by a truck and required 10 operations to repair his legs.

Like Dundas and Harbord (the east-west streets to the south and north of College) are safer? Be serious.

I've lived in the College West area for more than three years now. Mine was the second cycling accident I've seen (the other person was wearing a helmet). Actually, I've also seen reprehensibly reckless behaviour by cyclists, who, if they had been hit, would have richly deserved it.

Good thing they were wearing helmets.

And that's another thing. A few people also made remarks about my absence of a helmet in the immediate aftermath of the accident. That's exactly what you want to do when someone's already in a shocky, high-stress state, folks! Blame the victim!

One last time: There was no cause-and-effect between my not having a helmet on and the accident happening.

The accident occurred because a driver, in a left-hand lane, made a turn across a curb lane without signalling, shoulder-checking or or looking in his mirror.

Here's what I'm going to do if I'm thrust into a good Samaritan role in the future: I'm going to see if the person's OK, attend to their needs and try to reduce their stress levels and make them comfortable.

If I have anything to say about them that's judgmental, I'll wait until they're out of hearing distance.

I'll try to remember that they aren't obligated to even say thank you, let alone listen to stories about grisly bike accidents from days gone by that might be further stressing them out.

For the record, I made a point of telling everyone who helped, "Thank you, you've been very kind."

PS:

I had another close call about one hour before accident. I was heading south on Manning Street. A woman in a minivan decided the right time to pass me on this residential sidestreet was when there were parked cars on both sides of the road!!

Excellent!!! Teach a course, lady!!!!

In that case, an expletive did escape my lips.