Waymo's School Bus Fix Under Federal Review After Violations Kept Coming
NHTSA's new recall query covers 2,895 robotaxis after it found most school bus passing incidents happened after Waymo's November 2025 software remedy was complete.
Federal regulators are now asking whether the software recall Waymo filed last December did its job. NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened Recall Query RQ26006 on November 6, covering 2,895 Waymo vehicles running the company's fifth-generation automated driving system, after finding that most of the school bus passing incidents it had collected happened after the fix was supposedly in place.
A recall query is a different tool from the preliminary evaluation that started this case. A PE asks whether a defect exists; an RQ asks whether a recall that has already been done actually cured it, or covered enough vehicles. It's the same remedy-quality question at the center of NHTSA’s Recalls Next push on unrepaired recalls, and it can end in an expanded or reworked recall, or in a closing report. NHTSA aims to finish recall queries within eight months.
What the agency found
Waymo filed recall 25E084 on December 10, 2025, covering 3,067 vehicles. The company said the update reached every affected car between November 5 and November 17, 2025, so no owner notice was needed: Waymo owns the whole fleet.
According to the RQ opening resume, a majority of the incidents identified during the earlier probe, PE25013, occurred after that November 17 completion date. The agency describes the problem as continued violations around stopped school buses, “particularly when the bus is boarding or offboarding students.” NHTSA closed PE25013 and moved the case to the new query. The resume cites eight traffic citations supplied by the Austin Independent School District; Waymo's own incident counts are marked confidential.
Why the robotaxis drove on
Waymo's recall filing explains the original failure. The software is designed not to block priority vehicles such as buses. A release dated August 20, 2025, broadly deployed in mid-September, changed how the system predicts what other road users intend to do. In some school bus encounters, the car concluded it was in the bus's way and pulled ahead while the red lights were still flashing or the stop arm was out.
The first known case was September 22, 2025, when a Waymo slowed to 5 mph for a bus and then moved off. At the time of the filing, Waymo said it knew of 12 related citations, all issued between September 25 and November 14, 2025, and no collisions. The fix was meant to make staying stopped outrank getting out of the way.
Austin, Atlanta, and Waymo's response
The original investigation opened in October 2025 after video showed a Waymo driving around a stopped bus unloading children in Atlanta. Reuters reports that Austin ISD has documented 19 violations and issued numerous $300 tickets, while Atlanta Public Schools recorded six.
In a statement to Reuters, Waymo said it has made “significant improvements” to how its vehicles behave around school buses and has received no citations since March. It said it will respond to NHTSA's query.
The timing is awkward for a company that leans on its 82% fewer injury crashes figure as it expands. NHTSA and the NTSB are also investigating a January crash in which a Waymo struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school, and robotaxi behavior near schools is already under scrutiny elsewhere, as in the school-zone speeding petition against Tesla’s robotaxi.
The query doesn't mean a new recall has been ordered. Waymo hasn't said whether it plans another software change for school bus scenarios, and NHTSA hasn't explained why the query covers 2,895 vehicles versus the 3,067 in the original recall.
