Waymo is recalling over 3,000 autonomous taxis, following an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after one of the vehicles illegally passed a stopped school bus. The incident turned out to be anything but isolated, showcasing a major defect in the company’s safety programming.
In our earlier coverage, we reported that a Waymo test mule was faulted for having driven around a bus that was actively dropping off children in Atlanta, Georgia. The incident prompted the NHTSA to look into the matter, resulting in the recall of 3,067 vehicles.
However, passing the bus isn’t the only reason for the recall. As part of the investigation, government regulators told the company that they wanted to look into how Waymo’s publicly tested vehicles navigated similar obstacles. This led to the other parts of the country confirming that they had likewise seen the AVs misbehaving.
According to CBS News, the Austin Independent School District has cited 20 incidents since the start of the school year where a Waymo robocab illegally passed a school bus. Meanwhile, Atlanta Public Schools stated that it was aware of at least 6 occasions of the AVs doing the same in its district.
From CBS News:
Waymo said it identified the software issue that contributed to the school bus incidents and that it implemented updates by Nov. 17, which it said improved its vehicles’ performance. The company is also planning to issue a voluntary software recall with NHTSA next week, Mauricio Peña, chief safety officer at Waymo, told CBS News late Friday.
“We will continue analyzing our vehicles’ performance and making necessary fixes as part of our commitment to continuous improvement,” said Peña.
Local officials in Austin say they remain concerned about road safety.
“As of Dec. 1, 2025, Waymo received its 20th citation since the beginning of the school year,” JJ Maldonado, a communications specialist for the Austin Independent School District, told CBS News. “This is after the company said it had fixed the issue through software updates that were implemented on Nov. 17.”
The district contacted the company and the NHTSA last month to address the matter, requesting that Waymo suspend all operations in the area until the problem had been dealt with. But Maldonado said that the businesses declined and instead tried to placate regulators with its safety record. This included claims that autonomous vehicles were becoming safer over time and were already capable of outperforming the average human driver.
This has often been the case when companies testing autonomous vehicles receive criticism. Waymo also stated that safety was its top priority. However, assuming that’s true, it seems reasonable that it would immediately suspend operations following incidents where vehicles were caught making potentially dangerous maneuvers.
While we understand that public testing provides invaluable data to companies hoping to master self-driving technologies, simply placing those vehicles alongside human drivers creates an inherent level of risk that would be absent at a dedicated testing facility. We cannot say whether that risk exceeds what already stems from human error. But that doesn’t make the companies fielding these vehicles any less responsible for them.
We know that Waymo has amassed quite a few traffic fines during testing and the company doesn’t have as spotless of a safety record as it likes to present.
It also needs to be said that the government has given tech companies a staggering amount of leeway in terms of advancing artificial intelligence and public surveillance technologies in recent years. Autonomous vehicles seem to have been issued the same treatment, despite being similarly unpopular with large portions of the public.
San Francisco has been ground zero for the good and bad of public testing and accounts for the vast majority of AV accidents in the United States. Data on the individual incidents are available via AVcrashes.net and showcases why many Californians aren’t fans.
Many residents, often backed by local fire and rescue services, have criticized the vehicles as being a menace. The publicity even got so bad that it’s been attributed as part of the reason General Motors’ Cruise shut down. But California leadership seems broadly supportive of the businesses.
In fact, the California Department of Motor Vehicles actually approved Waymo’s expansion into the southern portion of the state while the NHTSA investigation was still ongoing. Waymo has continued to expand across the United States while other autonomous test fleets have ceased operations permanently. However, we cannot tell if that’s because it offers safer services or just happens to be better connected thanks to being owned by Google-parent Alphabet.
[Images: Waymo]
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