Waymo robotaxi drives around stopped school bus in Atlanta

What happened

On September 22, 2025, a Waymo robotaxi in Atlanta, Georgia, approached a school bus that was stopped with its red lights flashing, its stop arm extended and its crossing control arm deployed. The encounter was captured in a media report that NHTSA later cited.

According to NHTSA’s summary, the Waymo came toward the right side of the bus from a perpendicular side street and initially stopped. It then turned briefly right to clear the bus’s right front corner, turned left to pass in front of the bus, and continued left down the roadway along the full left side of the bus. In doing so it passed the extended crossing control arm near students who were getting off, and passed the extended stop arm. No safety operator was in the vehicle. No collision or injury was reported.

Similar events followed elsewhere. Austin Independent School District said in a letter that it had recorded 19 instances of Waymo vehicles failing to stop for its buses since the start of the 2025-2026 school year, including one that the district said occurred just after a student crossed in front of the Waymo.

The system involved

The vehicle ran Waymo’s 5th Generation Automated Driving System in driverless service. In its recall report, Waymo said its system includes features meant to avoid impeding priority vehicles such as buses. After a software release dated August 20, 2025, which was broadly deployed in mid-September and changed how the system predicts other road users’ intentions, a Waymo that had stopped or was stopping for a school bus could decide it was impeding the bus or another priority vehicle and move on before the bus had turned off its flashing lights or retracted its stop arm.

Investigation and response

NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation opened Preliminary Evaluation PE25013 on October 17, 2025, saying the likelihood of other similar incidents was high given Waymo’s mileage. Waymo’s engineers identified the behavior in October, and the company deployed a software fix to all affected vehicles between November 5 and November 17, 2025. On December 10, 2025, Waymo filed recall 25E084 covering 3,067 vehicles. It said it knew of 12 citations tied to the behavior between September 25 and November 14, 2025, and that no collisions had occurred. Waymo’s chief safety officer said the company moved quickly once the issue was identified.

Austin ISD asked Waymo to stop operating during morning and afternoon school travel hours, and NHTSA asked Waymo whether it had done so, KSAT reported.

On November 6, 2026, NHTSA opened Recall Query RQ26006 covering 2,895 vehicles. The agency said it had identified a large number of reported incidents of Waymo vehicles passing stopped school buses, that a majority occurred after the November 17, 2025, remedy date, and that it would assess the adequacy of the recall remedy and the causes of the later incidents.

What is not established

Waymo’s recall report describes its first known event on September 22, 2025, as a vehicle slowing to 5 mph and then proceeding before a bus retracted its stop arm; the report does not name the city, so it is not confirmed here that this is the same event NHTSA described in Atlanta. The outcome of NHTSA’s recall query was not known as of November 14, 2026.