Georgia treats leaving the scene of a crash as a crime. If you were just hit by a driver who sped off, or you're worried about your own obligations after a collision, the rules that matter are written into the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, and they spell out what you must do at the scene and how you can still recover money when the other driver is never found.
What the law requires you to do at the scene
Under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-270, any driver involved in an accident that causes injury, death, or damage to an occupied vehicle has to stop right at the scene or as close to it as possible, then return.1 Stopping is only the start. The same statute requires you to give your name, address, and vehicle registration number, show your driver's license on request, and render reasonable assistance to anyone who's hurt, which can mean calling 911 or arranging a ride to a hospital.1 The Georgia Department of Driver Services describes these as the core duties every licensed driver accepts.2
Hitting a parked, empty car counts too. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-271 says a driver who strikes an unattended vehicle must stop and either find the owner or leave a written note in a conspicuous spot on the car, with the driver's name and address. Skipping that note is a misdemeanor.3
Georgia also has a separate reporting duty. O.C.G.A. § 40-6-273 requires you to notify law enforcement immediately, "by the quickest means of communication," any time a crash causes injury, death, or property damage of $500 or more.4 If the wreck is inside city limits, you call the local police department; outside a municipality, you call the county sheriff or the nearest state patrol office.4 That $500 threshold is low enough that almost any real collision clears it.
Penalties for leaving the scene
Georgia grades hit-and-run by how badly someone was hurt. When the crash caused property damage or an injury that isn't serious, leaving the scene is a misdemeanor. A first conviction carries a fine of $300 to $1,000 that a judge cannot suspend, stay, or probate away, plus up to 12 months in jail.1 A second conviction within five years runs $600 to $1,000, a third within five years is a flat $1,000, and both still carry up to a year in jail.1
When a driver knowingly leaves a crash that was the proximate cause of a serious injury or a death, the charge becomes a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.1 That's the provision behind most of the fleeing-driver prosecutions you see in the news. Leaving the scene is charged on its own, separate from whatever caused the wreck, so a driver can face a hit-and-run count stacked on top of a DUI or a following-too-closely ticket.
A conviction hits your license on top of the criminal sentence. O.C.G.A. § 40-5-54 lists a hit-and-run conviction under § 40-6-270 as a mandatory license suspension offense.5 For a first offense with no similar conviction in the prior five years, O.C.G.A. § 40-5-63 sets the suspension at 12 months, though you can apply for early reinstatement after 120 days once you finish a Department-approved defensive driving course and pay the restoration fee.6
If a driver hit you and drove off
Take care of injuries first, then treat the report as non-negotiable. Because § 40-6-273 already obligates a driver to notify police, calling 911 from the scene is both the safe move and the legal one.4 A responding officer starts the paper trail you'll need later, and the crash gets logged into the records system run by the Georgia Department of Transportation.7 You can pull that documentation afterward through the state's Georgia crash report process.
While you wait, write down everything you can about the car that fled: color, make, any part of the plate, direction of travel, and the time. Photograph the damage to your own vehicle and the surrounding scene. In a hit-and-run that evidence does double duty, because it's often what lets your own insurer confirm a phantom vehicle was really involved.
How you get paid when the driver is never found
This is where Georgia law quietly works in your favor. Uninsured motorist coverage, governed by O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11, treats a car as "uninsured" when the owner or operator is unknown, which is exactly the situation in a hit-and-run.8 Your own UM coverage can then pay for your injuries and losses as if it were the fleeing driver's liability policy.
There's a catch worth knowing. The statute generally requires actual physical contact between the unknown vehicle and you or your car, unless an eyewitness other than you corroborates how the crash happened.8 So a driver who ran you off the road without touching your car can still be covered, but only if someone besides you saw it. When contact did occur, the damage to your vehicle is usually proof enough. If the driver is never identified, Georgia lets you sue the phantom motorist as a "John Doe" defendant and serve the lawsuit on your own insurance company.8
Georgia doesn't force you to buy UM, but every insurer has to offer it, and it's automatically included at limits matching your bodily injury coverage unless you rejected it in writing.89 Check your declarations page. If you never signed a rejection, you likely have it. The state's minimum liability limits are 25/50/25, meaning $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for injuries and $25,000 for property damage, so UM limits often mirror those numbers.109
One Georgia quirk shapes your medical bills. The state repealed its no-fault law back in 1991 and doesn't require personal injury protection, so nothing automatically covers your early treatment. Optional medical payments coverage can, if you bought it, and otherwise those costs wait on the UM claim or your health insurer.9 Vehicle damage rides the same track. Even after a proper repair, a car with a wreck on its history is worth less, and you can pursue that gap through a diminished value claim.
Deadlines you can't miss
Georgia gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.11 Property damage claims get longer: four years under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-32.12 Those clocks apply whether you're suing an identified hit-and-run driver or pursuing a UM claim, and missing them usually ends the case no matter how badly you were hurt.
One more Georgia rule shapes what you recover. The state follows modified comparative negligence with a 50% bar, so under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 your damages drop by your share of fault and vanish entirely if you're 50% or more to blame.13 In a clean hit-and-run where the other driver caused everything, that rarely cuts against you, but insurers still probe for it.
If the injuries are significant or your insurer drags its feet on a UM claim, it's worth talking to a lawyer who handles these cases in Georgia. You can start with the legal directory.
This article is general information about Georgia law, not legal advice for your specific situation.
Sources
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 40-6-270, Hit and run; duty of driver to stop at or return to scene of accident. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-6/article-12/section-40-6-270/
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Georgia Department of Driver Services, Chapter 2: Traffic Laws & Safe Driving. https://dds.georgia.gov/chapter-2-traffic-laws-safe-driving
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 40-6-271, Duty upon striking unattended vehicle. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-6/article-12/section-40-6-271/
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 40-6-273, Duty to report accident resulting in injury, death, or property damage. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-6/article-12/section-40-6-273/
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 40-5-54, Mandatory suspension of license; notice of suspension. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-5/article-3/section-40-5-54/
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 40-5-63, Periods of suspension; conditions to return of license. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-5/article-3/section-40-5-63/
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Georgia Department of Transportation, Crash Data & Reporting. https://www.dot.ga.gov/GDOT/pages/CrashReporting.aspx
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 33-7-11, Uninsured motorist coverage under motor vehicle liability policies. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-33/chapter-7/section-33-7-11/
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Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, Consumer Guide for Automobile Insurance. https://oci.georgia.gov/document/document/guide-auto-insurance/download
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 40-6-10, Insurance requirements; proof of insurance. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-6/article-1/section-40-6-10/
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 9-3-33, Injuries to the person; limitation of actions. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-9/chapter-3/article-2/section-9-3-33/
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 9-3-32, Injuries to personalty; limitation of actions. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-9/chapter-3/article-2/section-9-3-32/
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Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 51-12-33, Comparative negligence; apportionment of damages. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-51/chapter-12/article-1/section-51-12-33/