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

The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an probe into Waymo aft its robotaxis person been spotted illegally passing stopped schoolhouse buses galore times successful astatine slightest 2 states.

The NTSB is specifically focusing connected the more-than-20 incidences that person occurred successful Austin, Texas, it said successful a station connected X connected Friday.

It’s the archetypal clip Waymo has been investigated by the NTSB, but it’s the 2nd probe launched into Waymo implicit its schoolhouse autobus problem. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defects Investigation opened a akin probe successful October.

Waymo besides issued a bundle recall successful December to code the problem. But erstwhile bundle updates person not been capable to stamp it out, and successful Austin, Texas — wherever the bulk of incidents person been captured connected camera — the schoolhouse territory has asked the institution to suspend operations during pickup and drop-off times.

The caller probe comes arsenic Waymo is successful the mediate of a accelerated enlargement astir the United States. Just this week, the institution started offering a robotaxi work successful Miami, adding to its operations successful Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“We safely navigate thousands of schoolhouse autobus encounters play crossed the United States, and the Waymo Driver is continuously improving. There person been nary collisions successful the events successful question, and we are assured that our information show astir schoolhouse buses is superior to quality drivers,” Mauricio Peña, Waymo’s main information officer, said successful a connection to TechCrunch. “We spot this arsenic an accidental to supply the NTSB with transparent insights into our safety-first approach.”

The NTSB is antithetic from the NHTSA successful that it is not a national regulatory agency. It cannot contented fines oregon penalties. Rather, the information committee usually performs heavy investigations to place basal causes of problems successful the proscription world. When an probe is complete, the committee often holds hearings and issues non-binding recommendations.

The archetypal notable incidental wherever a Waymo conveyance passed a stopped schoolhouse autobus happened past September successful Atlanta, Georgia. The Waymo pulled retired of a driveway and crossed perpendicularly successful beforehand of the schoolhouse autobus from the bus’ close side. The robotaxi past turned near and proceeded down the thoroughfare portion kids were getting disconnected the bus.

Waymo said astatine the clip that the conveyance was incapable to spot the halt motion oregon flashing lights, and has since said that it addressed this peculiar script with a bundle update.

But arsenic Waymo patched the circumstantial script it encountered successful Atlanta, immoderate of the company’s vehicles were caught passing stopped schoolhouse buses successful Austin, Texas. Local quality outlet KXAN published videos it received from cameras mounted connected schoolhouse buses that showed Waymo vehicles making amerciable maneuvers connected multiple occasions.

“We proceed to prosecute productively with the Austin Independent School District and applaud their reported occurrence successful reducing human-driven violations astir schoolhouse buses from 10,000+ a year,” Peña said.