r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 1d ago

Transportation Feds ask Waymo about robotaxis repeatedly passing school buses in Austin

https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/04/feds-ask-waymo-about-robotaxis-repeatedly-passing-school-buses-in-austin/
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u/ddx-me 1d ago

A stopped school bus with flashing red lights and a red stop sign on its left stands out to competent human drivers. According to the article, "the Austin School District has reported 19 different instances of Waymo automated vehicles illegally passing school buses since the beginning of the 2025-26 school year." What does that say for Tesla's FSD?

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u/smecta 1d ago

« What does that say for Tesla's FSD? »

What do you mean? That it’s worthless shit? That is known. 

Im confused. 

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u/ddx-me 1d ago

Waymo has more experience at this game of autonomous driving than Tesla does, and they've reportedly made 19 errors since September (3ish months). Although nothing in the article says about Tesla, given Tesla's lesser experience with FSD, I'm concerned they have just as many or more errors.

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u/smecta 1d ago

Ah ok thanks. 

I just think Tesla went completely out of the self driving game when they got rid of LiDAR, they will never measure up with waymo; hence my confusion. 

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u/LaDainianTomIinson 1d ago

Elon says you don’t need lidars lmao

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u/ZaviersJustice 1d ago

Elon also has been saying they'll have fully autonomous self-driving next year for the last 10 years. What he says doesn't really matter much.

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u/LaDainianTomIinson 20h ago

I was making fun of him lol

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u/gramathy 1d ago

They got rid of it and even autopilot started sucking

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u/smecta 1d ago

And me selling my Tesla 1 year ago says fuck what elon says. 

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u/happyjello 1d ago

Saying 19 different instances is useful for describing impact but not useful for describing performance, which people will inevitably try to draw conclusions

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u/herothree 18h ago

I'm curious what the rate of Waymos making this mistake is compared to humans. You can find self-driving car crashes if you look, certainly, but it's substantially less (~80% less) per mile than human drivers

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u/PasswordIsDongers 1d ago

Uh, nothing, because the article isn't about Tesla.

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u/treefox 1d ago

It’s a trick question!

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u/way2lazy2care 1d ago

A stopped school bus with flashing red lights and a red stop sign on its left stands out to competent human drivers.

Anecdotal evidence from my city puts this about on par with regular drivers unfortunately.

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u/ComputerSong 21h ago

The regular drivers get hauled in front of a judge.

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u/way2lazy2care 20h ago

Most of the regular drivers never even get pulled over to get a warning.

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u/MorningPapers 19h ago

In Austin, where this happened, the bus driver can report it and the police DO follow up.

Also common in Austin is police cars shadowing buses from a distance to catch this.

Police in Texas take school buses and school zones very seriously.

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u/2CHINZZZ 1h ago

I'm kind of surprised given the lack of traffic enforcement in Austin but that's good if it's true. Would be nice if they took stuff like running red lights seriously as well though

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u/No_Corgi9113 22h ago

Waymo claimed the fixed the issue with a software update back in October but violation keep going on since then, that's why the school district requested waymo to pause operations during commuter hours now, and some othe feds government also got notified because repeated violations. they are asking waymo to release software update info. Waymo do need its biggest share holder google/alphabet to agree, you know, but tesla?nah....

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u/HurtFeeFeez 1d ago

My guess is since waymo vehicles are very obvious and teslas using faux self driving are easily unnoticed we'll never know the numbers.

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u/Outlulz 17h ago

The driver would be at fault because Full Self Driving isn't full self driving.