The only time a car has made contact with me has been on the Pacific Coast route in Del Mar, CA. It was a hot summer weekend, and cars were backed up for half a mile from the two stop signs on the highway (the part west of the racetrack). There is a marked bike lane, and I was blithely passing the stopped cars in the lane when a jerk in a convertible decided he would pass everyone in the bike lane too. The trouble was that he swerved into the bike lane when I was alongside him. The good news is that I did not go down. The ends of my bar-ends made contact with the side of his car and left a nice, satisfying scratch in his paint, but I managed to regain control. He was furious, and tried to make out that it was somehow my fault---yeah, right.