The day a London bus jumped Tower Bridge to avoid disaster is tale that will fill every pub quiz in 2025. Because of all the trivia about London’s iconic public transport, one example sounds a little too extraordinary to be true.
A few days after Christmas 1952, a London bus jumped the gap between the two halves of Tower Bridge’s road section after it started to open. If something similar happened today, it might sound like a publicity stunt or a terrorist incident.
A matter of life or death
But for driver Albert Gunter it was more or less a matter of life or death.
His number 78 bus was travelling northwards on the bridge’s southern bascule when it started to rise.
‘It seemed as though the roadway in front of me was falling away,’ Mr Gunter would later say and that was the day a London bus jumped Tower Bridge to avoid disaster.
In those days, a gateman was supposed to ring a warning bell to confirm that Tower bridge was clear, after which another watchman would order it to be raised. But bus driver Albert Gunter had other ideas.
The day a London bus jumped Tower Bridge
On December 30th 1952,the process failed, and Mr Gunter faced a difficult choice: stop the bus, and hope someone noticed before it began slipping backwards, or head on.
‘I realized that the part we were on was rising. It was horrifying,’ he said in an interview a couple of weeks after the incident.
‘I felt we had to keep on or we might be flung into the river. So I accelerated.’
His quick thinking allowed the bus to reach the northern bascule, despite reaching a speed of just 12mph.
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The day a London bus jumped Tower Bridge to avoid disaster
The bus could have landed in a fatal position if it remained on the bridge until it was fully opened. The horizontal gap was not very wide, as the northern bascule had not yet begun to rise, but the vertical drop was around six feet.
Twelve of the twenty passengers aboard received minor injuries, while Mr Gunter broke his leg. Meanwhile, the bus suffered no notable damage besides a broken suspension spring.
Peter Dunn, a boy who was riding the bus, said he hadn’t noticed anything was amiss until ‘there was a loud crashing sound and I was thrown onto the floor’, according to a testimonial published by the City Bridge Foundation.
Mr Gunter was rewarded with £10 and a day off
According to Peter, Mr Gunter explained to the bewildered passengers that his experiences as a wartime tank driver gave him confidence to make the jump. And now until the end of time, he will be remembered for the story of The day a London bus jumped Tower Bridge to avoid disaster.
Mr Gunter was rewarded with a day off and £10 (about £360 in today’s money). When he was asked how he would spend it, he said: ‘Five for me, and five for the missus’.