Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Drawing Closer Government Scrutiny

Waymo's autonomous vehicles are getting more attention from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—the federal agency that oversees vehicle safety—opened an investigation into roughly 2,000 Waymo robotaxis following complaints about how they interact with school buses. The National Transportation Safety Board also documented cases where Waymo vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses.

This regulatory attention comes as Waymo operates at a larger scale than ever before. The company runs over 1 million completely self-driving rides every month across several major U.S. cities. California's utility commission approved Waymo to expand into new areas effective November 21, 2025—even as these safety concerns are being raised.

How Federal Regulators Track Self-Driving Cars

The federal government uses specialized databases to track crashes and incidents involving self-driving vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (the semi-automated features in cars today). The NHTSA's public records include documents about Waymo dating back to 2019, showing how long the agency has been monitoring the company's operations.

Safety Worries in Cities

San Francisco raised concerns with the California Public Utilities Commission about how Waymo's self-driving cars affect emergency responders. The city submitted evidence showing that driverless vehicles can create problems when firefighters, paramedics, and police officers are trying to respond to emergencies. CPUC records document these concerns.

Waymo says it has created a First Responder Program and maintains an Emergency Response Team to help with situations like accidents. The company provides guides to police and firefighters on how to interact with its vehicles.

How Safe Are Waymo's Cars, Really?

Waymo reports that across 71.1 million miles of self-driving operations, its cars have had 34 airbag deployment crashes—the kind of serious impacts that deploy a vehicle's airbags. The company compares this rate to crash data from human drivers in the same cities: Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. According to Waymo's analysis, its vehicles cause fewer injury-causing crashes per mile driven than human drivers in those areas.

Waymo has documented its safety methodology in what it calls its Safety Framework, which describes how the company approaches safety every day. The company has shared this work with outside researchers, who have published peer-reviewed studies based on Waymo's data.

What Congress and Industry Leaders Are Saying

Federal lawmakers have held hearings about self-driving cars. Waymo executives have testified to Congress about the company's robotaxis. The House held a hearing in July 2023 specifically about self-driving vehicle regulations. Congress has also considered several pieces of legislation over the years with names like the LEAD'R Act and PAVE Act, each proposing different rules for autonomous vehicles.

Labor unions, including the Teamsters, have raised concerns about what self-driving vehicles could mean for truck drivers and other transportation workers.

What Happens Next

The federal investigation results, combined with what cities like San Francisco have documented, will likely shape how all self-driving car companies are regulated going forward. Waymo's response to these safety concerns—particularly how it improves interactions with first responders and school buses—may influence both whether the company can keep expanding and what rules apply to the entire autonomous vehicle industry.

This situation echoes something we have seen before with new technologies. When the commercial internet started scaling up in the 1990s, federal regulators had to figure out how to oversee it as it grew from experimental pilots to widespread use. They had to balance letting the technology develop with protecting public safety. The same balancing act is happening now with self-driving cars.

The broader question is whether today's safety systems and regulatory frameworks will be enough as self-driving vehicles become more common on ordinary streets. Regulators, cities, and Waymo itself will all have a role in determining that answer.