Waymo founder John Krafcik made headlines this week with claims that Tesla’s cameras-only approach to Full Self Driving was “myopic,” but the self-driving taxis from the company he helped found keep illegally passing school buses – and putting kids at risk.

Despite several attempts to correct the potentially dangerous problem with fresh software updates, the Austin Independent School District (ISD) in Austin, Texas says that Waymo’s autonomous rideshare vehicles are still illegally passing school buses.

The school district claims that latest recorded incident of a Waymo robotaxi illegally passing a school bus happened just two days after the latest software recall Waymo says they conducted was completed. That apparent failure has become a significant source of frustration for the Austin ISD, who is calling for Waymo to cease operations in Austin.

Austin ISD again asks that Waymo cease operations in the mornings and afternoons during school days when our students are using our buses. Austin ISD continues to explore any and all legal recourse available.

AUSTIN ISD

School Transportation News reports that Waymo told Austin ISD that software updates were in place that would resolve the issue on 05NOV2025, but a 20NOV memo to Waymo by the Austin ISD general counsel states that at least five (5) violations occurred after Waymo’s November software update had taken place.

“Put simply, Waymo’s software updates are clearly not working as intended nor as quickly as required,” reads the Austin ISD memo. “We cannot allow Waymo to continue endangering our students while it attempts to implement a fix.”

If all this sounds familiar, that’s because you’re paying attention. Waymo is already facing scrutiny from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after one of its cars were caught on video illegally passing a stopped school bus that was letting children off in Atlanta.

The promise of autonomous vehicles is that they’ll be safer than human drivers because they’re not distracted by their cell phones, flashing lights on the side of the road, scantily clad pedestrians, or anything else – and they’ll always follow the rules of the road. If they can’t live up to that promise, they have no place on the road.

That said, plenty of human drivers illegally pass school buses, too – so maybe I’m wrong about this one. Head on down to the comments and let me know what you think.

SOURCES: School Transportation News, Fox7 Austin.

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