This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

The driver of a bus that struck and killed a cyclist just outside the Olympic Park in Stratford while ferrying journalists between venues has been bailed until August, police have said.

The 28-year-old man was knocked down by the doubledecker in Ruckholt Road, at the junction with the A12, at about 7.40pm on Wednesday. An air ambulance doctor pronounced him dead at the scene.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said a man in his mid-60s had been arrested just outside the Olympic Park at 9.28pm on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.

The victim is expected to be formally identified later on Thursday. A date for a postmortem examination is yet to be fixed.

After the fatal incident, Bradley Wiggins, who by winning a gold medal on Wednesday became Britain's most decorated Olympian, warned of the perils of cycling in the capital. "It's dangerous and London is a busy city and [there is] a lot of traffic. I think we have to help ourselves sometimes," he said.

"I haven't lived in London for 10 to 15 years now and it's got a lot busier since I was riding a bike as a kid round here, and I got knocked off several times.

"But I think things are improving to a degree. There are organisations out there who are attempting to make the roads safer for both parties. But at the end of the day we've all got to co-exist on the roads.

"Cyclists are not ever going to go away as much as drivers moan, and as much as cyclists maybe moan about certain drivers they are never going to go away, so there's got to be a bit of give and take."

Wiggins said he would like to see the introduction of a law making it compulsory to wear cycling helmets.

He later clarified his comments on twitter. "Just to confirm I haven't called for helmets to be made the law as reports suggest."

"I suggested it may be the way to go to give cyclists more protection legally if involved in an accident.

"I wasn't on me soap box CALLING, was asked what I thought."

Responding to his comments, Chris Peck, the policy coordinator for the UK's national cycling organisation the CTC said that making helmets compulsory would be counter-productive. He told Radio 5 live. "Making cycle helmets compulsory would be likely to have an overall damaging effect on public health, since the health benefits of cycling massively outweigh the risks and we know that where enforced, helmet laws tend to lead to an immediate reduction in cycling."

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said he was "hugely saddened" by the death. A spokesman for the mayor said: "Any road death is a tragedy and the mayor's thoughts are with the cyclist's family. As this is now under police investigation it would be inappropriate to say anything else."

Johnson cycled into Whitehall for this morning's ministerial Olympics meeting at the Cabinet Office wearing a bike helmet. But he appeared to be opposed to mandatory wearing of protective headwear by cyclists, as advocated by Wiggins. "I think they should do if they want to," Johnson said.

A London 2012 spokesman said: "We can confirm that a cyclist tragically died as a result of a collision with a bus carrying media from the Olympic Park this evening.

"The police are investigating the accident and our thoughts are with the cyclist's family."

The Metropolitan police's road death investigation unit is looking into the collision.