Georgia’s School Mornings Could Get Darker. Who Answers When a Child Is Hit at the Bus Stop?

I have memories of shivering in the cold, very early on winter days, waiting for a school bus.

At one place I lived as a child, I had to walk half a mile in the dark to get to the bus stop. At another childhood home, we lived on a dirt road at the top of a hill. It was a mile down that hill in the dark, every morning, to get to the school bus.

So a new study got my attention. It says that if America moves to permanent daylight saving time, there will be billions more school trips like mine each year. And of the states the researchers calculated, Georgia’s increase was the largest.

This post is about what the study found, and about who answers under Georgia law when a child is hit in the dark on the way to school.

What the study found

The study was done by researchers at the University of Washington and published in Current Biology on October 29, 2026. According to the university’s summary:

• Permanent daylight saving time would mean at least 2 billion more dark commutes to school in the United States.
• The researchers calculated the numbers for 14 states and estimated the rest of the country from them.
• Georgia had the largest increase of those 14 states, with about 71 million more dark trips.
• A fatal crash involving a school-aged pedestrian was roughly twice as likely on dark mornings as after sunrise.

Be careful with that last number. It compares dark mornings with light ones. It is not a prediction of how many more children would be hit. But no parent needs a prediction to understand it.

Why this matters in Georgia

Georgia has already signed on. Governor Kemp signed a law about five years ago to adopt year-round daylight saving time, but it needs Congress to act. The U.S. House passed the Sunshine Protection Act in July. It has stalled in the Senate. If it does not pass by the time this Congress ends in January, the process starts over.

Here is what it would mean. In early January, the sun comes up in Atlanta at about 7:43 in the morning. Under permanent daylight saving time, that would be about 8:43.

I will say what I think. Before anyone moves the sunrise, someone should count the bus stops.

Whatever Congress does, this is not only a problem for later. Many Georgia children are already out there before the sun comes up on winter mornings. The law on who is responsible applies to them today.

“I couldn’t see him”

That is what the driver will say, and the insurance company will say it louder.

Darkness does not excuse a driver. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-93 requires every driver to exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian, and to exercise proper precaution upon observing any child. I wrote about that duty in my post on Halloween and child pedestrians. Georgia’s speed law also looks past the number on the sign. A speed can be too fast for the conditions, even when it is under the limit. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-180.

A driver on a school morning, in the dark, in a neighborhood with a bus stop, knows children may be there. That matters.

Here is the honest part. Expect the insurance company to argue that the statute speaks of “observing” a child, and that its driver never did. Sometimes a child in dark clothes really is hard to see. These cases turn on the facts: the speed, the headlights, the phone, the street lighting, and how long that child was there to be seen.

The stopped bus

Under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-163, drivers must stop for a school bus that is loading or unloading with its signals on. In 2024 Georgia passed Addy’s Law, named for Addy Pierce, a Henry County child killed that year. Passing a stopped school bus is now a high and aggravated misdemeanor with a fine of at least $1,000.

I wrote years ago that there is no excuse for passing a stopped school bus. There is less of one in the dark, when a bus’s flashing lights can be seen from far away.

The bus driver and the school district

The bus driver has duties too. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-164 says a driver who stops to let children off may not move the bus until all children who need to cross the roadway have done so safely. Georgia courts have long said that school bus operators are carriers of passengers who must use extraordinary care. Eason v. Crews, 88 Ga. App. 602 (1953). I covered these rules in my post on private school injuries.

Claims against a public school system are harder. Sovereign immunity protects public schools from most lawsuits, and that includes most complaints about how a district runs things. Motor vehicle claims are where the door is most open. Even at a public school, the courts have treated unloading a child and getting the child to a place of safety as part of operating the bus, so the bus insurance can answer for it. Roberts v. Burke County School District, 267 Ga. 665 (1997).

So if your child was struck at the stop, find out where the bus was, whether the stop arm and lights were out, whether the driver watched the crossing, and who chose that stop. A private school or a private contractor has no immunity to get around in the first place.

Watch the clock on these claims. A claim against a city, a county, or the State may need written notice within months. I explained those notice deadlines here.

Can they blame your child, or you?

They will try. Dark coat. No flashlight. Crossing before the bus arrived. Standing too close to the road.

Whether your child can be charged with fault depends on age. Under Georgia’s tender years doctrine, very young children cannot be. Under O.C.G.A. § 51-1-5, a child under 14 is judged by the care that child’s own mental and physical capacity fits him to exercise. Not an adult’s care. A child’s. If the injured person is found 50 percent or more at fault, there is no recovery at all, so the insurance company has every reason to make your child look careless.

They may also come after you. Why was he walking alone? Where were you? I answered that question in “Where Were You?” The law does not require a parent to be perfect. Parents who have to be at work send their children to the bus stop every day. That is what the bus stop is for.

If your child is hit

1. Call 911 and get your child medical care. Head injuries in children are often missed at first. Follow up, even if your child seems fine.
2. Get the police report number and the names of the officers.
3. Photograph the scene at the same hour, so the darkness and the lighting are accurate. Light changes through the winter, so do it within days.
4. Keep the clothes and the backpack. Do not wash them or throw them away. What they look like in headlights can be evidence.
5. Ask for video now. Ask neighbors for doorbell and security camera video, because many systems overwrite footage within days. Ask the school system, in writing, to preserve any bus video and its records of the route and the stop.
6. Get the names of the other children and parents at the stop. They saw it.
7. Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company before you get advice. I just wrote about what three innocent words in a recorded statement cost one client.

Remember too that there are two claims and two clocks. Your child’s claim is usually protected until the 20th birthday. Your claim for the medical bills is not.

What parents can do now

• Walk the route with your child in the dark, at the real hour. You will see things you do not see at noon.
• Put reflective tape on the backpack and the coat, and give your child a small flashlight.
• Teach your child to wait well back from the road, and not to run for the bus.
• Teach your child to cross only after the bus has stopped and the driver has signaled it is safe.
• If you can, wait with your younger children, or take turns with the other parents at the stop.
• If the stop is dangerous, say so to the school system in writing, and keep a copy.

I still remember those mornings, the cold and the dark and that long hill. Children in Georgia are making that same walk today, and we may be about to give them a great many more dark mornings to make it in. The least the rest of us can do is slow down and watch for them.

Attorney Pete Pearson has practiced personal injury law in Georgia since 1996. He has a special interest in helping families of injured children. He is a father of ten and lives with his wife and children in Newborn, Georgia.

If you need to talk, my direct line is Six-Seven-Eight 358-2564, or email pete@petepearsonlaw.com.