US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched a preliminary investigation into about 2,000 Waymo autonomous vehicles after reports of potential failures to obey traffic laws near stopped school buses.

Waymo, a US-based self-driving tech company owned by Alphabet, operates a robotaxi fleet in cities such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin.

The NHTSA review began after a media report highlighted an incident where a Waymo vehicle did not remain stationary while a school bus was stopped with flashing red lights, a deployed stop arm, and children disembarking.

According to the report, the vehicle initially stopped, but then moved around the front of the bus, passing the extended stop arm and crossing control arm.

The vehicle involved was operating without a human safety driver and used Waymo’s fifth-generation automated driving system.

Waymo said it has introduced improvements for handling school bus stops, and plans further software updates.

🔗 Source: The Guardian

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NHTSA probe says Waymo’s ADS faces occlusion near stopped school buses

Waymo said its Automated Driving System (ADS) robotaxi could not see the school bus’s flashing lights or stop sign because the bus blocked part of the driveway and it approached at an angle where signals were not visible 1.
After talks with Waymo, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the “likelihood of other prior similar incidents is high” and opened a probe covering about 2,000 vehicles 2.
Waymo’s third federal probe follows 2023 cases involving roadway barriers that led to a recall and wrong-lane or construction-zone entries 1.
The company says it has issued software updates to improve performance, with more planned 3.

Stop-arm camera makers could explore Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) to improve school-bus safety

A vendor blog says bus-mounted stop-arm camera systems use AI to detect then document vehicles that pass when the stop-arm is extended, and can generate citation revenue for districts 4. It also claims 99.5% uptime with predictive maintenance 4.
The World Resources Institute (a nonprofit research organization) says electric school buses typically have 100-200 kWh batteries and predictable schedules 5. Utilities across the U.S. have launched Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) pilots for these buses 5.
Beyond V2G pilots, vendors could add V2X transmitters to stop-arm camera systems to broadcast stop-arm status to vehicles.
Stop-arm cameras already connect with fleet management software 4. Districts could evaluate V2X as a safety upgrade, though feasibility depends on vendor support and autonomous vehicle (AV) industry adoption 4.