The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a new review of Waymo’s response to reports that its robotaxis passed stopped school buses. TechCrunch reported on November 9 that a filing dated November 6 said most of the reported incidents occurred after Waymo deployed a software update intended to correct the behaviour. The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation has opened a recall query to assess the adequacy of the remedy. This is a review of the earlier fix, not a final determination that the company has violated a new safety rule or that every vehicle has the same defect.
The recall query focuses on whether the previous software remedy worked
The issue first drew federal attention in 2025 after video showed a Waymo vehicle manoeuvring around a school bus that had stopped, displayed flashing red lights and extended its stop arm while children were being unloaded. School buses create a demanding perception and decision problem for autonomous systems because the vehicle must interpret signals, road layout, lane position and the possibility of children moving around the bus. The legal requirement to stop is clear, but a self-driving system must recognise the situation reliably under different lighting, angles and traffic conditions.
Waymo said its software update was completed for affected vehicles on November 17, 2025. NHTSA’s filing says a majority of the later reports occurred after that update. The agency is So examining whether the remedy addressed the underlying issue. The company told TechCrunch it had made measurable improvements and said it had received no citations since March 2026. That statement is Waymo’s position; the regulator’s review will determine whether the software change was sufficient and whether additional corrective action is required.
School-bus rules test perception and decision-making in real traffic
Autonomous driving systems combine cameras, lidar, radar and mapping with software that predicts the movement of other road users. School-bus scenarios can expose gaps in how these systems interpret unusual traffic configurations. A vehicle may detect the bus but misread the stop arm, fail to classify the bus as stationary or choose a path that is technically navigable but legally prohibited. Correcting one case in software is not enough if the system has learned a narrow pattern. Engineers need to test across different bus designs, road geometries, weather, lighting and vehicle approaches.
The investigation matters beyond Waymo because the autonomous-vehicle industry is expanding commercial operations into more cities. Regulators and local school districts need evidence that software updates improve safety across the fleet and do not introduce new failure modes. Useful information will include the number and location of post-update incidents, the software versions involved, the circumstances of each event and the company’s validation process. Until NHTSA completes its review, the issue should be described as an open safety investigation. The central question is whether the corrective software reliably recognises and obeys school-bus stop signals in real-world conditions.
The regulator’s focus on the post-update incidents is important for software-defined vehicles. A recall can be completed administratively while the underlying behaviour remains difficult to reproduce across a large fleet. Regulators need to know whether the fix changed the decision logic, expanded the training or validation data, or added a specific rule for school-bus situations. They may also examine whether the company monitors the fleet for recurring events and how quickly it reports them. For operators, the case shows that safety assurance is continuous: a software update is a corrective action that must be validated in the field, not a permanent certificate that a problem can never recur.
School districts and parents will also want clear communication about what the autonomous fleet does around buses and how incidents are reported. A transparent process can help distinguish isolated errors from a recurring software weakness. The regulator’s findings should So be considered alongside Waymo’s technical explanation and any future corrective action.