NHTSA questions whether Waymo's school-bus recall fix worked

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a recall query into Waymo's robotaxi software, asking whether a fix completed on November 17, 2025 actually stopped its cars from illegally passing stopped school buses. TechCrunch reports NHTSA's November 6 filing says most reported incidents came after the update; Waymo says it has had no citations since March 2026.

What happened

According to TechCrunch, Waymo issued a software update and a recall after reports that its robotaxis were passing school buses that had stopped with flashing red lights. NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened its first probe in October 2025 after footage of a Waymo vehicle going around a stopped school bus that was unloading children in Atlanta. Austin school district officials reported at least five incidents at that time, in a letter filed with NHTSA.

Waymo said last year that the update was completed on all affected vehicles on November 17, 2025. In its November 6 filing, NHTSA said a majority of the reported incidents occurred after that update. It opened a "recall query" to "assess the adequacy of the remedy," according to TechCrunch, which credits Reuters with first reporting the filing. WIRED adds that the formal recall followed in mid-December 2025, that an NTSB report found another school-bus passing incident in mid-January, several weeks after the supposed fix, and that the NTSB is also investigating. Passing a stopped school bus is illegal in all 50 states, WIRED notes.

What Waymo says

A Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch: "We have made significant improvements to vehicle behavior around school buses and have received no citations since March 2026." The company said it will respond to NHTSA's query and looks forward "to continuing our engagement on recall processes for AV software that continues to learn and improve."

What this does and doesn't show

• It is a question, not a finding. A recall query asks whether a remedy was adequate. NHTSA has not concluded the fix failed.
• Timing is the crux. The issue is that most reported incidents came after the date Waymo said the fix was on all affected vehicles, so the query also aims to find causes of the later incidents.
• Two claims to reconcile. NHTSA's account is about incidents it reviewed through the filing; Waymo's is about citations since March 2026. The reporting does not show how those fit together.

Why it matters

Autonomous driving software changes through updates, so regulators are testing whether a software recall can be shown to work in the field. For the split between NHTSA recalls and state permits, see how robotaxis are regulated in the US. For riders and school districts, the practical question is whether the behavior around stopped buses is consistently correct. For the industry, the outcome may shape how over-the-air fixes are documented and verified. Codema follows the AI and infrastructure side of robotaxis in its AI and Hardware sections.

What to watch next

• Waymo's response to NHTSA. The company said it will respond once it receives the query.
• Whether NHTSA identifies a cause for the incidents after the fix.
• The NTSB investigation, which WIRED reports is looking at the same issue.