Waymo recalls 3,067 robotaxis after they drove past stopped school buses

Previously

In May 2025, Waymo recalled software on 1,212 vehicles after 16 collisions with chains, gates and similar barriers, none with injuries. The fix was already fleetwide (Part 1).

December 2025 — Waymo has recalled software on 3,067 driverless vehicles after its cars drove past school buses that had stopped with red lights flashing and stop arms out. Here's what changed since Part 1 (May 2025), what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of December 2025)

Vehicles covered: 3,067, running software from the Aug. 20, 2025 release until the Nov. 5 release. (NHTSA recall 25E084)
Citations Waymo knows of: 12, all between Sept. 25 and Nov. 14, 2025. No collisions. (NHTSA recall 25E084)
Incidents documented by Austin ISD: 19, per NHTSA. (NHTSA email)
Federal probe: NHTSA preliminary evaluation PE25013, opened Oct. 17, 2025, about 2,000 vehicles estimated. (NHTSA)
Fix: a software hotfix deployed Nov. 5 to 17, 2025. (NHTSA recall 25E084)
Cost of the recall: not disclosed.

What the software did

Waymo designs its cars to avoid "impeding progress of priority vehicles," such as public buses and school buses. The filing says that, while yielding to a school bus, the system could determine "that it may be impeding the school bus or another priority vehicle, and then reasoned that it should proceed in order to cease impeding the other vehicle." The car would then move off before the bus had turned off its lights or pulled in its stop arm.

The feature existed before, but Waymo says the behavior only showed up with the Aug. 20, 2025 release, which reached the fleet broadly in mid-September.

How it unfolded

Waymo's filing says the first known event was Sept. 22, 2025, when a car slowed to 5 mph for a school bus and then went on before the stop arm was retracted. It wasn't cited.

NHTSA opened its probe on Oct. 17, prompted by a media report of a Waymo passing a school bus in Atlanta on Sept. 22. The agency's summary says the car first stopped, then drove around the front of the bus, passing "the bus's extended crossing control arm near disembarking students." NHTSA noted that Waymo's system passed 100 million miles in July 2025 and adds about two million a week, and said "the likelihood of other prior similar incidents is high."

On Oct. 30, Waymo's Field Safety Committee decided to ship a hotfix outside its normal release schedule. It went out to the affected vehicles from Nov. 5 to 17.

On Nov. 24, Tanya Topka, director of NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, emailed Waymo. She said Austin's school district had written to the company citing "19 documented incidents of Waymo AVs passing stopped school buses," and had asked it to "cease AV operations during common pick up and drop off times for students." Topka asked whether Waymo had done so or planned to, and whether it would file a recall.

On Dec. 2, Waymo's Safety Board decided to recall. TechCrunch's Kirsten Korosec reported on Dec. 5 that NHTSA had sent Waymo a letter on Dec. 3, and that Austin ISD officials contended, in a letter posted on NHTSA's website, that at least five incidents happened after Waymo said it had updated its software.

What Waymo said

Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch: "While we are incredibly proud of our strong safety record showing Waymo experiences twelve times fewer injury crashes involving pedestrians than human drivers, holding the highest safety standards means recognizing when our behavior should be better." He said Waymo had "made the decision to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA related to appropriately slowing and stopping in these scenarios."

What's changed

As in May, the fix was on the road before the filing: the hotfix went out Nov. 5 to 17, and the recall was filed Dec. 10. The difference is that violations were reported after the update. This time the defect also came from a new software release, and a school district and a federal regulator were tracking the incidents. The fleet in the recall is more than twice as big.

What went wrong

A courtesy feature overrode a stop law. The car's rule against blocking priority vehicles led it to pass buses loading children.
Outsiders pushed it. Waymo's own field monitoring caught the first known event, on Sept. 22, and its engineers identified the behavior in October. But NHTSA's probe started with a media report, and the 19-incident count came from the school district.
The fix may not have held. Austin ISD's letter, as TechCrunch reported on Dec. 5, says at least five incidents came after the update. That is the district's count as of early December.
What we don't know yet: whether Waymo paused service at school times, which dates the district's post-update incidents fell on, and how many incidents happened outside Austin.

Our follow-up question for Waymo

Did Waymo stop operating near Austin schools at pick-up and drop-off times, as the district asked?

Sources

Waymo LLC, Part 573 Safety Recall Report 25E084, submitted Dec. 10, 2025. static.nhtsa.gov
NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation, PE25013 open resume, “Waymo AV drives around a stopped school bus,” Oct. 17, 2025. static.nhtsa.gov
Tanya Topka, NHTSA, email to Matthew Schwall, Waymo, “School Bus Follow Up Austin,” Nov. 24, 2025. static.nhtsa.gov
Kirsten Korosec, TechCrunch, “Waymo to issue software recall over how robotaxis behave around school buses,” Dec. 5, 2025. techcrunch.com
Earlier in this series: Part 1. /case/waymo-recalls-gates-chains

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder