Waymo announced a voluntary recall on Dec. 5 for its fleet of self-driving cars after Texas authorities reported that the vehicles have passed stopped school buses on at least 19 occasions since the start of the academic year.
The incidents, which took place in Austin, caused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to start an investigation in October into Waymo’s vehicles in the vicinity of school buses.
On Dec. 3, the federal agency requested detailed reports from the company with regard to the Texas cases by Jan. 20, 2026.
Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., which operates robotaxis in an expanding roster of U.S. cities, cited a software flaw that caused vehicles to briefly stop, then drive past the buses.
“Holding the highest safety standards means recognizing when our behavior should be better,” Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña said in a statement. “As a result, we have made the decision to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA related to appropriately slowing and stopping in these scenarios.”
The nationwide recall is voluntary, meaning Waymo decided to issue it on its own, without being ordered by regulators.
Peña said recent updates have improved the system’s effectiveness. The recall will install these updates, and a company representative noted that Waymo intends to monitor performance closely while refining its systems as necessary.
Tensions escalated in Austin after the local school district recorded five violations in November even though Waymo had apparently applied preliminary patches. In a Nov. 20 letter released by the NHTSA, officials from the Austin Independent School District asked the firm to suspend services near educational institutions during student transport hours until compliance could be verified.
“We cannot allow Waymo to continue endangering our students while it attempts to implement a fix,” a lawyer for the school district stated.
The lawyer also claimed that a Waymo vehicle was “recorded driving past a stopped school bus only moments after a student crossed in front of the vehicle, and while the student was still in the road.”
The district told reporters on Dec. 4 that Waymo declined to halt operations, which the company corroborated on Dec. 5, saying that its new algorithms outperform human operators in detecting and responding to stopped school buses letting children on and off.
Five additional reports highlighted traffic law infractions, including entering construction areas or driving into oncoming lanes. No serious injuries resulted.
