Waymo's self-driving tech is facing some serious heat. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is putting the pressure on, demanding more info after reports surfaced about Waymo robotaxis allegedly blowing past school buses a whopping 19 times this year in Austin. I mean, that's not a good look, especially when kids are involved.

It all started with an incident in Atlanta where a Waymo vehicle maneuvered around a stopped school bus, stop sign extended and lights flashing, while children were getting off. Waymo claimed the bus was blocking the driveway and their system couldn't see the signals. They even issued a software update to supposedly fix the issue.

However, the problems didn't stop there. Austin School District reported multiple instances of Waymo vehicles doing the same thing, even after the software update. Seriously? That's like patching a hole with duct tape and expecting it to hold.

The school district got so fed up, they asked Waymo to stop operating during peak school hours. "Your software updates aren't cutting it," they basically told Waymo in a letter. "We can't risk our students' safety while you tinker with fixes." Harsh, but fair, I think.

Waymo's Response

Waymo's response? Safety is their "top priority," of course. They even pointed out that their data shows a reduction in injury-related crashes compared to human drivers. And this is true, self driving cars avoid a lot of accidents. However, there are a lot of accidents involving simple tasks, like recognizing a school bus.

It seems like Waymo has some serious explaining to do. The NHTSA wants to know if Waymo actually stopped operations as requested, if the software fix truly addressed the issue, and whether a recall is in the cards. This whole situation raises some big questions about the reliability and safety of self-driving technology, especially in situations where split-second decisions are critical. I am concerned, and you should be too.