US regulators question whether Waymo's school bus fix worked

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency that polices vehicle safety, opened a recall query in a filing dated November 6. A recall query is a formal check of whether a company's recall fix was good enough.

NHTSA says a majority of the reported incidents happened after the date Waymo said its fix was in place. The agency wants to assess whether the remedy was adequate and to identify the causes behind the reports that came after it.

Waymo finished the software update on all affected vehicles on November 17, 2025. That is the line NHTSA is now measuring against.

The story started in the fall of 2025. A local news video in Atlanta showed a Waymo robotaxi going around a school bus that had its stop sign out and its red lights flashing while children got off.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened its first probe in October 2025 after seeing that kind of footage. In the Atlanta case, the car crossed in front of the bus from its right side, then turned left around the front and drove on.

Austin, Texas, reported more. Austin's school district sent NHTSA a letter listing 19 cases of Waymo cars illegally passing its buses since the start of the 2025-26 school year. It said at least five of them came after Waymo said it had updated its software.

• October 2025: NHTSA opens its first investigation after the Atlanta footage.
• November 17, 2025: Waymo completes a software update on all affected cars.
• December 3, 2025: NHTSA sends Waymo a letter with detailed questions about its self-driving system.
• December 2025: Waymo files a voluntary software recall, which covered more than 3,000 vehicles.
• November 6, 2026: NHTSA opens the recall query.

Most people think of a recall as a car going back to the dealer for a new part. For a robotaxi, the "part" is often code. The company sends an update over the internet, and the cars fix themselves overnight.

A voluntary recall still counts. It is filed with NHTSA and carries legal weight. That is why the agency can come back later and ask whether the update did what it promised.

In real life Think of a teacher who says the homework problem is fixed, and then checks the next class's results. The recall query is that second check.

A Waymo spokesperson said the company has made significant improvements to how its cars behave around school buses and has received no citations since March 2026. The spokesperson said Waymo will work to respond to the query once it is received.

The company also described the system as one that "continues to learn and improve." It says it looks forward to continuing its work with regulators on recall processes for self-driving software.

When Waymo filed the recall in December 2025, its Chief Safety Officer, Mauricio Pena, said holding the highest safety standards means "recognizing when our behavior should be better." Waymo also said no injuries were related to the behavior covered by that recall.

Separate from NHTSA, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is also investigating. The NTSB is an independent federal agency that studies crashes and issues safety recommendations. It cannot force a recall, but its reports carry weight.

The NTSB said it is looking into a January 12 incident in Austin, where a Waymo passed a school bus that was loading students, in violation of Texas law. It also knows of a January 14 case involving a bus on a special-needs route.

That second case has a detail worth explaining. The Waymo stopped for the bus at first. Then other cars passed the bus, which prompted the Waymo to ask a human remote assistance operator whether it was "a school bus with active signals." The operator said no, and the Waymo then passed the bus.

The NTSB said it plans to issue safety recommendations to help prevent similar incidents.

Yes. Austin's school district asked Waymo to pause operations around schools during pick-up and drop-off times until it could be sure its cars would follow the law. Waymo declined.

That request is the clearest sign of how local officials feel. School districts see these buses every day, so a pattern of near-misses gets noticed fast.

Not directly, but both involve children and Waymo. NHTSA also opened a separate investigation into a January 23 collision in Santa Monica, California, where a Waymo struck a nine-year-old girl near an elementary school.

Waymo said the girl ran out from behind a double-parked SUV, and that its car braked hard, slowing from about 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact. The company said the child stood up and walked to the sidewalk and had minor injuries. NHTSA is checking whether the car used enough caution near a school during drop-off.

Those are different events with different causes. They share one thing: regulators are paying close attention to how robotaxis behave where children are.

The scale matters for how regulators think. NHTSA noted that Waymo's cars passed 100 million miles of driving in July 2025 and were adding about 2 million miles a week. A rare mistake can still show up many times at that volume.

Waymo says its own data shows its cars have twelve times fewer injury crashes involving pedestrians than human drivers. Regulators do not dispute that here. They are asking a narrower question about one specific traffic rule.

Waymo has issued voluntary software recalls before: one earlier in 2025 and two in 2024. Software fixes are now a normal part of running a fleet of self-driving cars.

Waymo has to answer NHTSA's questions. The agency will compare incident dates against the fix date and look for causes. It can then close the query, ask for changes or push for a new recall.

The NTSB's recommendations are still to come. Nothing in the query takes Waymo's cars off the road, and the company continues to operate in its cities.

• If you ride Waymo: nothing changes today. The cars keep running, and the query is a review, not a ban.
• If you drive near school buses: the law is the same for you. Stop when the red lights flash and the stop sign is out.
• If you live in a Waymo city: expect more attention to how cars behave around schools, from regulators and local officials.
• If you follow self-driving cars: the real test is whether a software fix holds up in daily traffic, not just in a company's own checks.