Waymo’s Driverless Cars Have a School Bus Problem. Nearly 2,900 Robotaxis Are Now Under Federal Scrutiny.

A Waymo robotaxi stopped behind a school bus in Austin, Texas, earlier this year, but what happened next has become part of a growing federal investigation into the safety of driverless cars.

The vehicle received assistance from a human operator in Michigan, then continued past the school bus while its stop arms were still extended. It was one of several incidents involving Waymo vehicles passing stopped school buses, even after the company rolled out software changes intended to prevent such violations.

Federal regulators are now investigating whether the fix actually worked, with nearly 2,900 Waymo vehicles under scrutiny.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a new investigation on Nov. 6 after receiving reports of robotaxis passing school buses displaying flashing red lights or extended stop arms. Most of the reported incidents occurred after Nov. 17, 2025, when Waymo said it had completed its software update.

The investigation covers 2,895 vehicles equipped with the company’s fifth-generation automated driving system. Regulators are examining why the incidents continued and whether the original recall adequately addressed the problem.

The issue had already become a concern for school officials in Texas. Austin Independent School District documented 19 incidents involving Waymo vehicles passing stopped school buses in violation of traffic laws during the 2025 school year, according to correspondence submitted to federal regulators.

The district went as far as asking Waymo to suspend operations during common school pickup and drop-off hours over concerns about student safety.

In Atlanta, Georgia, a Waymo vehicle was reported to have initially stopped for a school bus unloading children before driving around its front and continuing down the road. The bus had its red lights flashing and stop arm extended, while students were getting off.

The incident helped trigger an October 2025 federal investigation, with NHTSA documents detailing how the robotaxi maneuvered near children leaving the bus.

Waymo subsequently introduced software changes intended to prevent its vehicles from moving until a school bus had switched off its flashing red lights or retracted its stop arm.

The company filed a voluntary recall on Dec. 10, 2025, covering 3,067 vehicles. It said the updated software had already been installed between Nov. 5 and Nov. 17.

The recall also disclosed 12 related traffic citations issued between Sept. 25 and Nov. 14, although Waymo said no collisions had resulted from the behavior identified in the recall.

Yet the January incident in Austin showed how the problem could arise even when a robotaxi initially recognized a stopped school bus.

On Jan. 12, a Waymo Jaguar I-Pace stopped behind another vehicle near a school bus that was loading students. The robotaxi then requested remote assistance from an operator in Novi, Michigan.

According to a preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the remote operator responded to a prompt from the automated driving system before the vehicle resumed moving and passed the bus with its stop arms still extended.

Another vehicle followed the Waymo past the bus. Investigators found that six vehicles in total passed the stopped school bus during the incident.

There was no crash, but the NTSB also identified a separate Jan. 14 incident involving a school bus operating on a special-needs route in Austin.

The agency is investigating Waymo’s interactions with school buses separately from the NHTSA’s review of the original software recall.

Waymo says it has made improvements to how its vehicles respond to school buses and maintains that it has not received any related traffic citations since March 2026.

The company is also facing scrutiny over another incident involving a child near a school. In January, federal investigators opened a separate case after a Waymo robotaxi struck a nine-year-old child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California.

The child was crossing the street during morning drop-off hours and suffered minor injuries that did not require medical transport, according to the NTSB’s preliminary findings.

Investigators are examining the vehicle’s response to the child and the surrounding traffic conditions.