Waymo robotaxis kept illegally passing school buses after software fix, feds say
Nearly a year ago, Waymo updated its self-driving software and issued a recall after numerous reports that its robotaxis were illegally passing school buses that had stopped and deployed flashing red lights. Now, federal safety regulators have opened a new investigation into why that behavior has continued.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a November 6 filing that a majority of these reported incidents occurred after the company deployed a software update intended to fix the problem.
Reuters was the first to report the filing.
Waymo said last year that a software update was completed for all affected vehicles on November 17, 2025. However, NHTSA said the majority of the incidents occurred after the software update. NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has opened a “recall query” to “assess the adequacy of the remedy.”
The ODI opened its initial investigation into Waymo in October 2025 after seeing footage of one of its autonomous vehicles maneuvering around a stopped school bus that had its stop sign extended, lights flashing, and was unloading children in Atlanta. In that incident, a Waymo robotaxi crossed perpendicularly in front of the school bus from its right side. The autonomous vehicle then turned left around the front of the bus before traveling down the street.
Numerous other incidents have been documented in the weeks and months since in Austin, where Waymo also operates a robotaxi service. Austin Independent School District officials reported at least five such incidents at the time, according to a letter filed with NHTSA.
TechCrunch has reached out to Waymo and Austin Independent School District officials for comment and will update the article if they respond.
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Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
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