Most reported incidents in which Waymo robotaxis passed stopped school buses occurred after the company deployed an update to correct that behavior. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a new review to determine whether the fix worked.
The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation, ODI, announced the new inquiry on November 6. Its goal is to assess whether the action taken by Waymo was sufficient. The investigation comes after the company updated its software and issued a voluntary recall, but while cases continued to be documented.
Most cases occurred after the update
Waymo said last year that it had completed deploying the update to all affected vehicles on November 17, 2025. According to WIRED, the company issued the fix in mid-November, and the voluntary recall followed a month later, in mid-December. NHTSA says most reported incidents occurred after the update.
The ODI’s new action is a “recall query,” a procedure for examining the effectiveness of a repair. In this case, the agency wants to determine whether the software change succeeded in preventing autonomous vehicles from passing stopped buses with their red lights on and stop arms extended. Those signals indicate that the bus is picking up or dropping off students; passing one under those conditions is illegal in all 50 states, according to WIRED.
The case had already led NHTSA to open an initial investigation in October 2025. The agency then examined footage from Atlanta showing a Waymo autonomous vehicle approaching a stopped school bus with its stop arm extended and lights flashing as children were getting off.
The Atlanta incident and reports from Austin
In the Atlanta video, the robotaxi crossed perpendicular to the front of the bus from its right side. It then turned left around the front of the school bus and continued down the street. The footage was the starting point for ODI’s initial investigation.
Incidents were also reported in Austin, where Waymo operates a robotaxi service. Officials from the Austin Independent School District reported at least five incidents in a letter submitted to NHTSA. The cases continued in the weeks and months after the Atlanta incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which WIRED describes as an independent U.S. safety agency, is also investigating the problem. A report published earlier this year identified another incident of passing a school bus in mid-January, several weeks after the software fix. WIRED notes that the NTSB investigation is ongoing.
Waymo collected data with buses in a parking lot
Late last year, the Austin school district helped organize a half-day data collection session. The district coordinated with Waymo to use school buses and stop-arm signs in an empty parking lot so the company could gather information to train its vehicles and prevent that illegal maneuver.
The session took place after Waymo had issued both the update and the voluntary recall. Even so, incidents continued to emerge.
Waymo’s response and the federal review
Waymo maintains that it has improved how its vehicles respond to school buses and has not received any citations for passing them since March 2026. NHTSA still needs to assess the effectiveness of the repair.
“We have made significant improvements to vehicle behavior around school buses”
— Dana Gallagher, Waymo spokesperson
In comments reported by TechCrunch, a company spokesperson added that Waymo will respond to the query when it receives it and expects to continue working with NHTSA on recall processes applied to autonomous vehicle software that continues to learn and improve. The company also argued that its system has a demonstrated positive effect on road safety.
NHTSA recall queries have sometimes resulted in civil penalties, some amounting to tens of millions of dollars, according to WIRED. The review that has been opened must determine whether the fix implemented by Waymo was sufficient. The company expects to respond to ODI’s query when it receives it.
Sources: TechCrunch, WIRED
