Sidewalk cyclist leaps without throughly looking.
 

Nasty surprise follows.

http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.c...004502cl-3.jpg

To the cyclists credit, that is a tiny "car"... but goes to show it's better to be positioned properly than to assume you've seen everything from a poor vantage point and make an aggressive maneuver.

Cyclist hurt after being hit by solar powered car

These solar powered cars always seem to get into collisions also... I think this is the second accident involving a solar car in BC. The first may have been a fatality, iirc.

Too many people depend hearing the noise of a car to determine if there is something coming. I'm not sure that is what happened here, but it seems possible. I am always amazed at pedestrians who walk out in front of me mid-block without looking because they didn't hear a car. I think we'll see a lot more of this as coal-powered cars become more common.

Yup, it was probably silently cruising hidden below the row of parked cars... I have no doubt the cyclist didn't see it or expect such a strange vehicle.

"Strange" in being relatively silent and not overly large? What other sort of vehicle might he have been familiar with that meets those criteria?

Looks more like a motorcycle:

http://www.zerotracer.com/3.Zerotrac...otracer_1.html

I've seen it before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdmU2onWc6M

Yup, it is very low to the ground has a small front profile and is silent. It would be almost impossible to notice with a glance if it were driving on the near-side of a row of parked cars. I think recumbent guys put on flags to try and raise awareness for these reason.