HL2037 said:
It's not exactly the sort of thing that improves the relationship between cyclists and motorists in traffic. Wiggins had a golden opportunity to get the road safety message out, but no, instead flips the finger into a camera. Way to promote cycling!
This exactly. I don't really care that he gave the camera the finger. I rather like this version of Wiggo that is emerging as someone who gets angry and sometimes speaks before he thinks. It makes things interesting.
What's frustrating about this as a cyclist is that he had a golden opportunity to address road safely issues. Instead he reinforces the images that many motorists have of cyclists as arrogant jerks who don't deserve to be on the road. They may only be Daily Mail readers, but it may happen that it's a Daily Mail reader that's behind me and too frustrated to wait for a safe spot to pass.
Sure, Mello Wiggo may mount a cycling safety campaign later, but the moment is lost. The moment when most eyes were on him and was relevant to the issue. There's only so much media attention, only so much space in the paper or the listeners' consciousness. Now that space is filled with his apology rather than something that might have called attention to the fact that we all share these roads, that he was lucky to have escaped relatively unscathed and that hundreds don't.