US opens new probe into Waymo vehicles over school bus safety violations

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has initiated a new investigation into Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo, following numerous reported incidents of its autonomous vehicles passing stopped school buses, according to Reuters. The probe will examine roughly 3,000 Waymo-owned self-driving cars.

The NHTSA's examination comes after an earlier preliminary evaluation of the issue in October 2025. The agency concluded that investigation and opened a new recall query on Monday to determine the cause of additional violations. The school district in Austin, Texas, documented 19 separate violations and issued numerous $300 tickets to Waymo, while six other violations were recorded by public schools in Atlanta.

NHTSA is reviewing the software update implemented by Waymo under a December 2025 recall, which the company claims resolved the issue. Most of the incidents occurred after that software remedy was deployed, according to the investigation. Waymo stated in a statement that it has made significant improvements to its vehicle behavior around school buses and has not received any citations since March 2025.

The company said it will respond to NHTSA's query and look forward to continuing its engagement on recall processes for AV software that continues to improve.