Weird Effect -- Why did this happen?

Thats your answer, the image doesn't contain any EXIF data so I can't confirm what shutterspeed you were using. But if its 4000 thats the max i think.

What probably happend was the shutter speed number was flashing meaning, it wasn't able to expose properly with the given aperature.

Thanks for the feedback. What I'm really wondering, though, is why would the black or dark grey (to my eye) asphalt street overexpose, while the lighter (to my eye) items like the pink shirt on the lady in the background remain not blown out?

As far as I can tell, all the surfaces with direct sunlight are over exposed. Only shadowed surfaces are not.

Just to clarafy, are you saying that you DID have a polarizer on?

Rad

Yep, I had a polarizer on.

It is possible that the polarizer was rotated so that it selectively allowed the reflected light rather than attenuating it. This coupled with a metering for the shade would fit the results on the shot.

Not saying that that is what happened, just that it fits.

Rad

You probably didn't notice the 4000 blinking in the viewfinder when you pressed the shutter button down halfway. That means the selected appeture is too wide for the given ISO and shutter speed capability of the camera.

This could not be the reason. The sunlight is from the left, so that the reflected sunlight is unpolarized, so that the polarizer will not do anything (other than being a neutral density filter).

The reason for this effect is straight forward: The bright surfaces (with direct sunlight) are all over exposed, and the shadowed surfaces are more or less normally exposed.

hmmm...hot day? tar is shiny. black or not, shiny means hotspots.

I agree, looks to me like everything getting hit with direct sunlight is blown out. The only light colors you see properly exposed are shaded.

whered you set the focus? im wondering if the meter was looking at something like the train or a colord shirt.. also, what metering mode was it in? this happens to me using the spot meter on my 30D sometimes, ill meter a nice bright flower and the background comes out either black or really light.
-zacker-

Here's my take on it.
Things that have been mentioned already.
1)All the shadow areas are correctly exposed so the camera exposed for the shadow side of things.
2) You were shooting at f1.8 in AV mode from shooting indoors.

The unknown factors are:
What ISO did you have the camera set on?
What metering mode was it set on?

If you were at 1.8 and you had a high ISO then yes you would over expose as the shutter wouldn't get high enough.

at 1.8, outside on a bright day, even with a Polarized filter, you're gonna be slammin the sensor with a lot of light. You are probably within a stop or two because you did get the image somewhat. I think you can save some of the detail through PP.

seems your ISO was too high, and you metered off the dark black of the train.

you'll learn ways around it when you venture into manual mode.