Waymo probed by National Transportation Safety Board over illegal school bus behavior

The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into Waymo after the company’s robotaxis were repeatedly observed illegally passing stopped school buses in at least two U.S. states.

In a post shared on X on Friday, the NTSB said it is focusing on more than 20 incidents recorded in Austin, in which Waymo vehicles were seen failing to stop while students were boarding or exiting school buses.

The NTSB has opened a safety investigation to examine the interaction between Waymo vehicles and school buses stopped for loading and unloading students in Austin, Texas. — NTSB Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) January 23, 2026

“Investigators will travel to Austin to gather information on a series of incidents in which the automated vehicles failed to stop for loading or unloading students,” the NTSB said in a statement to TechCrunch. The agency expects to release a preliminary report within 30 days, followed by a more comprehensive final report in roughly 12 to 24 months.

This marks the first time the NTSB has investigated Waymo. However, it is the second federal inquiry tied to the company’s handling of school bus encounters. In October, the Office of Defects Investigation within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a similar probe into the issue.

Waymo issued a software recall last year to address the problem, but updates deployed so far have not eliminated the behaviour. In Austin — where many of the incidents were captured on camera — the local school district has requested that Waymo temporarily suspend operations during school pickup and drop-off periods.

The latest investigation comes as Waymo continues to expand its robotaxi services nationwide. This week, the company began offering rides in Miami, adding to its existing operations in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“We safely navigate thousands of school bus encounters weekly across the United States, and the Waymo Driver is continuously improving,” said Mauricio Peña, Waymo’s chief safety officer, in a statement to TechCrunch. “There have been no collisions in the events in question, and we are confident that our safety performance around school buses is superior to human drivers. We see this as an opportunity to provide the NTSB with transparent insights into our safety-first approach.”

Unlike the NHTSA, the NTSB is not a regulatory body and does not have the authority to impose fines or penalties. Instead, it conducts in-depth investigations to determine the root causes of transportation safety issues. Once an investigation concludes, the board often holds public hearings and issues non-binding safety recommendations.

The first widely reported incident involving a Waymo vehicle passing a stopped school bus occurred last September in Atlanta. In that case, a robotaxi pulled out of a driveway, crossed perpendicularly in front of a school bus on the bus’s right, then turned left and continued down the street while children were disembarking.

At the time, Waymo said the vehicle was unable to detect the bus’s stop sign or flashing lights and later stated that it addressed that specific scenario through a software update.

Despite those changes, additional incidents were later recorded in Austin. Local outlet KXAN published footage from cameras mounted on school buses showing Waymo vehicles making illegal passes on multiple occasions.

“We continue to engage productively with the Austin Independent School District and applaud their reported success in reducing human-driven violations around school buses from 10,000-plus a year,” Peña added.