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The Strange Tale of London’s Phantom Number 7 Bus That Ran Drivers Off the Road

Everyone loves a good ghost story. Well, everyone does, except those directly affected by one—like the poor drivers who lost their lives because of a possessed, phantom Number 7 bus in London.
A red double-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930s 5 photos
Photo: pixabay.com/blueJack92
A red double-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930sA red double-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930sA red double-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930sA red double-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930s
London, and the United Kingdom in general, is packed with ghost stories. It is the country where gloom is a way of life and where the uncanny has seeped into everyday reality because of a long and rich cultural offering of ghost stories of all kinds. This is one of the strangest, as the Londonist once classified it: the phantom Number 7 London bus.

Public transportation is safe, cheap, convenient, and recommendable. In large cities, like London, it’s preferred to personal means of transport, whether during the day or at nighttime. Back in 1934, when London only had a handful of night buses, and those too were rare and far in between, one rogue double-decker went on a rampage that earned it a spot on the list of London’s biggest and strangest ghost stories.

Public transportation is all fun until you throw demonic possession in the mix. Christine has some serious competition.

A red double\-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930s
Photo: pixabay.com / fietzfotos
The urban legend of the phantom Number 7 London bus goes back to an accident that took place in June 1934. A man driving his car on an otherwise empty street reached the intersection at Cambridge Gardens and Ladbroke Broke in west London when a red double-decker appeared out of thin air and charged at him. The poor chap swerved to avoid the bus and ran off the road, smashing against a building.

According to the story, either the car burst into flames, killing the driver on the spot, or he survived long enough to tell authorities what happened. The former version claims several eyewitnesses came forward to tell the cops about the mysterious double-deck bus that ran the car off the road. Whichever the account, it had this in common: the bus appeared out of nowhere, it was completely empty (including driver), and disappeared just as the car went off the road.

The description of the bus got even more specific: it bore the number 7 on its side and the word “General.” That would be the livery of London General, a line that had gone belly-up one year before (in 1933) and was eventually taken over by London Transport. The bus was fully lit, which means everyone on the outside could see that it was completely empty. It appeared at precisely 1.15 a.m. and disappeared within minutes.

From that accident on, sightings of the phantom bus increased, all along St Mark’s Road. To this day, it is believed to have caused hundreds of similar accidents by simply appearing on the road and charging toward cars, forcing drivers to swerve to avoid collision—only to be met with a more gruesome outcome.

Legend has it that the bus always appeared at 1.15 a.m. on the clock and not always in motion. At times, it would just linger on the side of the road and disappear when drunken pedestrians assumed it was a proper bus that could take them home safely and tried to board it. It never caused any casualty among pedestrians, and all its ghostly wrath was reserved for drivers of cars. However, it was said that whoever would board it would be “lost forever.” If anyone did, no one knows.

A red double\-decker known as the phantom Number 7 bust would run cars off the road back in the 1930s
Photo: pixabay.com / fietzfotos
Depending on who you believe (if you choose to believe any of these stories), the Number 7 bus only haunted the area for about a decade, when stories began to die down. Others name May 1990 as the last sighting of the Number 7 bus, as that year coincided with a series of changes to the road, including widening it, fixing it, and improving visibility by adding more street illumination. That helped launch a new urban myth about how the ghost of the driver of that bus or the bus itself was only running cars off the road to get authorities to understand how dangerous that stretch of the road was. It’s ok if you think that’s a joke, but then again, who knows what gets ghosts angry enough to start causing serious damage?

Whatever the reason the bus appeared and disappeared, it stands as proof that even something as tame and apparently safe thing as a double-deck bus can make for a good ghost story. Number 7 was not the lucky number here, that’s for sure.

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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