Georgia · Dougherty County · School Safety

Dougherty County School Bus Accident: Albany Bus Driver Cited, No Injuries — 3rd South Georgia Bus Accident This School Year

Children were on board when a Dougherty County school bus crashed at Liberty Expressway and Williamsburg Road in Albany on Tuesday. Nobody was hurt. The school system says the bus driver was cited. It is the second Dougherty County bus in a school year that is seven weekdays old.

What happened on Liberty Expressway?

A Dougherty County school bus was involved in an accident at Liberty Expressway and Williamsburg Road in Albany on Tuesday, Aug. 11, according to WALB, which published its report at 5:15 p.m. EDT.

Children were on the bus. No injuries were reported.

The Dougherty County School System told WALB that the bus driver was cited in connection with the incident. The report does not say what the citation was for, what the bus struck or was struck by, or which agency worked the accident.

That is the whole confirmed account. Everything below is context, sourced and labeled, for parents who want to know what happens next.

Was anyone hurt?

No. WALB reported that no injuries were reported, with children aboard.

That is the headline for any parent reading this, and it deserves to stay the headline. There is no hospital transport in this report, no ambulance detail, and no student condition to follow. A citation for the driver is a traffic matter, not a casualty.

Where exactly did it happen?

The accident happened at the intersection of Liberty Expressway and Williamsburg Road in Albany. The U.S. Census Bureau geocoder places that intersection in the 31705 ZIP code, on the southeast side of Albany, at approximately 31.4982° N, 84.1154° W.

The Local Alert does not publish news photographs of accident scenes involving children. Maps and fact cards only.

What "the bus driver was cited" actually means

A citation is a charge, not a finding. It is an officer's accusation that a traffic law was broken, and it is answered in court. The driver is presumed innocent unless it is proven.

Three things the report does not tell us, and that we will not fill in:

Georgia does set the floor for who may hold the wheel at all — see the certification rules below.

Which bus route was it?

Not released. The report does not give a route number, a school, the number of children aboard, or their ages.

Route numbers tend to get guessed at on neighborhood Facebook pages within the hour. A guess is not an answer. The section on how to check on your own child's bus below has the two calls actually worth making.

Why this is the third South Georgia bus accident this school year

WALB's headline is the story behind the story: this is the third school bus accident in South Georgia this school year, and the second involving a Dougherty County bus.

Dougherty County classes began Aug. 3. Tuesday was the seventh weekday of the year.

Compiled from WALB reports, each linked in Sources. WALB's Aug. 11 story states the count of three but does not itemize all three; The Local Alert read WALB's coverage of the two earlier accidents and describes only those two here.

Worth reading the pattern honestly: in the first two, another driver hit the bus. In Tuesday's, the bus driver was the one cited. Those are different failures, and lumping them into a single "buses are dangerous" narrative would be wrong. What they share is timing — the first two weeks of a school year, when routes are new, stops are new, and thousands of drivers are re-learning that the yellow thing ahead of them stops constantly.

The Aug. 5 Dougherty County accident

On Wednesday, Aug. 5, a Dougherty County school bus was involved in a traffic accident in Albany, WALB reported at 3:49 p.m. EDT. Another vehicle struck the bus.

A school spokesperson said no students were on board at the time. WALB noted details were very limited and that it was still working to determine exactly where and when the accident happened. No injuries and no citations were reported in that story.

The Worth County accident on GA 33

Two days later, WALB reported that a driver rear-ended a stopped Worth County school bus on GA 33 northbound. According to the Georgia State Patrol, Jazmyn Z. Fine failed to maintain distance and struck the bus. She was charged and taken to Tifton Regional Hospital.

WALB's report did not state whether students were on that bus. In a follow-up published Aug. 10, WALB described the Dougherty and Worth County accidents as two accidents in two days and said it planned to speak with law enforcement and highway safety officials about sharing the road with buses.

She is presumed innocent unless the charge is proven in court.

Who investigates a school bus accident in Georgia?

In this accident, the investigating agency was not identified, and we are not going to name one. Here is how it generally sorts out in Georgia, which is what determines where a parent later requests a report:

The Worth County accident was worked by the Georgia State Patrol, per WALB. That tells you nothing about who worked Tuesday's — different road, different jurisdiction.

Are Georgia school buses required to have seat belts?

This is the question that lands in every parent group after a bus accident, and the answer surprises people.

Large school buses are not required to have passenger seat belts. Georgia's child passenger restraint statute, O.C.G.A. § 40-8-76, is written for a driver who transports a child "in a passenger automobile, van, or pickup truck." That statutory language is reproduced by the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety.

Federally, the split is by size. Large school buses instead rely on a design approach the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls compartmentalization: in NHTSA's words, "the protective envelope created by strong, closely-spaced seats that have energy-absorbing high seat backs."

NHTSA's reasoning, in a summary of its position posted by the California Department of Education, is that lap belts alone would deliver minimal injury reduction in severe frontal accidents on a large bus and carry their own risks, including "increased risk of serious neck injuries and possibly abdominal injury among young passengers wearing lap belts." Small buses are a different case because they are, in NHTSA's assessment, more prone to rollover, and belts there help prevent ejections.

NHTSA's bottom line on the vehicle itself is blunt: "Students are nearly eight times safer riding in a school bus than in cars."

Attention: that comparison is about riding inside the bus. It is not a claim about the loading zone, where children are outside the vehicle and around traffic.

Who is allowed to drive a school bus in Georgia?

Because a driver was cited here, the certification floor is worth knowing. Under Georgia State Board of Education Rule 160-5-3-.08, a Georgia school bus driver must:

The annual training requirement is also statutory. O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1125 requires all public school system bus drivers to receive annual mandatory training on traffic laws pertaining to school bus operation and on bus operations and safety, and bars a driver from operating a bus without having completed that training within the preceding 12 months.

Nothing in the report suggests the driver in Tuesday's accident fell short of any of this. It is the baseline every Georgia bus driver is measured against, nothing more.

What Georgia law requires of drivers around school buses

Two of the three South Georgia accidents this year involved another vehicle hitting a bus, so this belongs here. Under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-163, a driver meeting or overtaking a stopped school bus from either direction must stop before reaching the bus when its visual signals are operating, and may not proceed until the bus moves again or the signals stop.

The statute carves out an exception for divided highways: a driver on a roadway separated from the bus by a grass median, unpaved area or physical barrier need not stop, and neither must a driver on a controlled-access highway where the bus is in a loading zone and pedestrians are not permitted to cross.

How to find out whether your child's bus was involved

The district has not released a route. Here is the order that actually gets you an answer:

How to get a copy of the accident report

Accident reports are not instant. Expect several business days, and expect the request to go to whichever agency worked the accident — which, again, has not been identified here.

If it was the Georgia State Patrol, the report is held by the Georgia Department of Public Safety Open Records Unit. Per DPS, requests go to 959 United Avenue SE, Attention: Open Records Unit, Atlanta, GA 30316, or by phone at (404) 624-7591 (fax (404) 624-7529). DPS asks for your full name, mailing address, contact phone, the names of subjects or victims, the records requested, the county or city where the incident occurred, the date, and the report number if you have it. DPS notes that all records requests are subject to the Georgia Open Records Act and may result in the requester being billed.

If a local department worked it, request it from that department instead.

What we don't know yet

This page will be updated if the Dougherty County School System or an investigating agency releases more.

Frequently asked questions

Was anyone hurt in the Dougherty County school bus accident?
No. WALB reported that children were on the bus and that no injuries were reported.

Where did the Albany school bus accident happen?
At Liberty Expressway and Williamsburg Road in Albany, in Dougherty County. The U.S. Census Bureau geocoder places that intersection in the 31705 ZIP code, in southeast Albany.

When did the accident happen?
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. WALB published its report at 5:15 p.m. EDT that day. The exact time of the accident was not stated in the report, and we are not going to guess at one.

Was the bus driver cited?
Yes. WALB reported, citing the Dougherty County School System, that the bus driver was cited in connection with the incident. The specific charge was not stated. A citation is an accusation, not a conviction.

How many children were on the bus?
Not disclosed. The report says children were aboard but does not give a number, their ages, or their schools.

Which bus route was involved?
The route number and the school the bus served were not released. Parents who want to know whether their child's bus was the one involved should contact the school or the Dougherty County School System transportation office directly rather than rely on the route guesses circulating on social media.

Who investigates a school bus accident in Georgia?
It depends on where the accident happened. Inside city limits it is usually the city police department; on state routes and in unincorporated areas it is often the Georgia State Patrol, whose reports are held by the Georgia Department of Public Safety. In this case the investigating agency was not identified in the report, so we are not naming one.

Are Georgia school buses required to have seat belts?
Large school buses are not required to have passenger seat belts. Large buses instead rely on compartmentalization, which NHTSA describes as a protective envelope of strong, closely spaced, energy-absorbing high seat backs.

What happens to a bus driver who is cited in Georgia?
A traffic citation is answered in court, and which court depends on which agency wrote it. That agency was not identified here. Any employment consequence is a separate school system personnel matter, and the district has not said whether this driver is still on a route. The driver is presumed innocent unless the citation is proven in court.

How do I find out if my child's bus was involved?
Call your child's school first, then the Dougherty County School System transportation office. Do not call 911 for information; it ties up the line for emergencies. The district has not published a route number for this accident.

How many South Georgia school bus accidents have there been this school year?
WALB counts three. The Local Alert independently read WALB's coverage of two earlier ones: a Dougherty County bus struck by another vehicle on Aug. 5 with no students aboard, and a Worth County bus rear-ended on GA 33, reported Aug. 7.

When did Dougherty County schools start this year?
Aug. 3, 2026, according to WALB. Tuesday's accident came on the seventh weekday of the school year.

How do I get a copy of the accident report?
If the Georgia State Patrol worked it, request it from the Georgia Department of Public Safety Open Records Unit at 959 United Avenue SE, Atlanta, GA 30316, or by phone at (404) 624-7591. DPS says records requests are subject to the Georgia Open Records Act and may be billed. If a local department worked it, request it from that department. Reports typically are not available for several business days.