Alphabet-owned Waymo is facing fresh trouble in the US. The country’s road safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has opened an investigation into 2,895 of its driverless cars. The main concern is that some vehicles passed stopped school buses with flashing red lights and stop signs.
In some cases, the cars slowed down or stopped but then moved forward again. This has raised serious safety concerns, as children may be crossing the road when school buses are stopped. The investigation will look at why Waymo's cars failed to follow these basic road safety rules.
This is not the first time Waymo has faced this problem. In December 2025, the company recalled more than 3,000 vehicles to fix the issue through a software update. Waymo said the update had reached all affected cars by November 2025. However, reports of similar incidents continued even after the fix.
Austin school officials reported 19 cases, including one where a Waymo car moved while a student was crossing the road. Six more cases were reported in Atlanta. The US road safety agency is now checking whether the update actually solved the problem.
The latest probe has raised questions regarding the self-driving technology of the company. Driverless cars are generally designed to follow traffic rules and react to critical situations without human help. Therefore, these vehicles must detect warning lights, stop signs, and when children are crossing roads.
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Software updates can help driverless cars improve some mistakes, but inreality, roads are unpredictable. While software updates can fix how to react to traffic lights or behave when someone comes in front suddenly, still, it can eliminate all the risks. Children may cross suddenly, buses may stop in unusual places, and traffic conditions can change quickly.
Waymo must update its software, but those updates require proper testing before launching into roads. A fix that works perfectly in one situation, may fail pathetically in another. Waymo’s latest safety probe shows that self-driving cars still have a long way to go. New software may improve their performance, but keeping children safe must come first.