(Crankers) If you haven’t heard this story before, then you will now. I saw an image talking about it on social media and looked it up, and it ended up being true.
It’s the story of Albert Gunter (1906-1968) and the day he jumped a double-decker bus over the London Tower Bridge on December 30, 1952. Gunter was a British bus driver who worked for London Transport. He was approaching the bridge in his double-decker No. 78 bus just as the bascules began to rise, so a ship could pass under it.
Gunter made a split-second decision to accelerate, jumping over a three-foot gap between the rising sections of the bridge, landing safely on the other side with no serious injuries to the 20 passengers on board. Everyone went to the hospital and Gunter broke his leg, but seems like nothing major happened to the passengers.
For his quick thinking, he was awarded a £10 bonus (equivalent to about £300 today). If you think about it today, he probably would’ve been fired. And if he slowed down and got stuck on the bridge as it went up, the massive double-decker could’ve tumbled backwards causing even more injuries or worse.
It wasn’t a massive jump over a 50ft gap or anything like that, but here’s the kicker – the bus was only going 12mph!