Waymo has drawn the attention of the National Transportation Safety Board as the federal agency launched an official investigation into the company for robotaxis that improperly passed school buses in Austin, Texas. The NTSB said at the time that it would “investigate interactions between Waymo vehicles and school buses stopped to pick up and drop off students.”
The latest federal investigation stems from a preliminary assessment by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that looked at how Waymo responded to school bus stops in a Texas city. That report led to a voluntary software recall of Waymo in December. However, the school district said in a memo that Robotaxis was observed repeating the same offense a few days after the software update.
As far as the NTSB investigation is concerned, an agency spokesperson said Austin American-Statesman That its “investigators will travel to Austin to gather information about a series of incidents in which automated vehicles failed to stop to pick up or drop off students.” According to an NTSB spokesperson, a preliminary report will come within 30 days, but the final report will take 12 to 24 months.
In response, Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña said in a statement to multiple news outlets that “There have been no collisions in the incidents in question, and we are confident that our safety performance around school buses is superior to that of human drivers,” adding that the investigation “will be an opportunity to provide the NTSB with transparent insight into our safety-first approach.”
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