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Federal safety regulators are demanding answers from Waymo, Tesla, Zoox and other autonomous-vehicle developers after documenting a pattern of driverless vehicles interfering with first responders.
Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ordered the companies to explain by the end of July how they will keep their vehicles from entering emergency scenes, blocking responders or failing to recognize flashing lights and other hazards. The incidents have renewed questions about whether robotaxis are safe enough to operate on public streets and prompted calls from some experts to slow their expansion.
Austin has seen such incidents firsthand. In one high-profile case, first responders heading to a March 1 mass shooting downtown faced an unexpected obstacle: self-driving robotaxis.
The shooting left three people dead and the gunman was fatally shot by police. Fifteen others were injured.
As first responders converged on the area, as many as five autonomous vehicles froze near the scene. One sat perpendicular across the roadway for nearly a minute before a police officer was able to climb into the front seat and move it.
Austin-Travis County EMS officials have said the mishap did not affect patient outcomes.
But robotaxis either blocked traffic or ignored the direction of Austin police in 25% of reported incidents from July 2023 to June 2026, according to the city of Austin's autonomous vehicle database. Data collected by the city since 2023 shows interference with law enforcement and other traffic is among the top safety concerns surrounding autonomous vehicles in the city.
Experts say the incidents have helped highlight the limited power Texas cities have to regulate the technology on their own streets.
"If Waymo or another company's autonomous driving system can't handle flashing lights and sirens in a crisis, it isn't ready for public roads," said Cooper Lohr, a senior policy analyst for transportation and safety at Consumer Reports. "It should be removed from service until the company proves it will handle the situation appropriately."
History of concerns
Austin has become a hotbed for robotaxis since the world's first fully autonomous ride was taken in the city in 2015. Waymo, the industry leader in autonomous vehicles, drove a legally blind man through the city without incident.
Now the company, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., is under pressure to control its vehicles in emergency situations, even as other robotaxi makers, including Tesla Inc., Zoox and Avride, join Waymo in expanding testing and service across Texas' capital city.
The downtown shooting was one of the most high-profile incidents in recent months but far from the only one.
In a July 2023 incident, a vehicle in General Motors' project known as Cruise nearly collided with an ambulance twice near West Avenue, city data shows. GM abandoned its work on Cruise a few months later after one of its vehicles struck and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco.
The incident sparked concern in the industry but innovation hasn't slowed and incidents continue to mount.
In November 2025, a Waymo vehicle inched toward officers working on a DWI investigation and attempted to enter a crash scene. First responders have also reported robotaxis interrupting funeral processions, disobeying hand signals, crossing fire hoses or driving the wrong way on major roadways.
Waymo, which operates the largest fleet of robotaxis in Austin, accounts for 57 of the 74 reported incidents involving blocked traffic or ignored directions from police officers.
In other cases, officers reported long wait times after requesting that Waymo establish a geofence, or a virtual perimeter prohibiting the robotaxis from entering certain areas during an emergency. That was a central concern for first responders after the March 1 downtown shooting, during which they said Waymo failed to abide by a requested 1,000-square-foot perimeter.
"I feel like whatever we say makes no difference at this point," one Austin police officer wrote in a report to the city. "What do we need to do to make sure this does not happen again and for Waymo to understand how serious this is?"
Waymo spokesperson Katherina Barna said safety is central to the company's operations.
"That means taking responsibility and always improving based on what we learn," Barna said. "We will keep working with Austin's leadership and first responder community, because ongoing collaboration is how we build the trust this city deserves and make Austin's streets safer."
The company has also said that its autonomous technology significantly reduces crashes compared to what might be expected from a human driver in the same conditions.
Attorney Brett Schreiber, who is representing first responders hit by a Tesla operating on Autopilot near Houston in 2021, shared doubt that even Tesla's newest technology, which uses cameras and artificial intelligence, can decipher the flashing lights of an emergency responder.
"What we see in these cases - which is just terrifying, especially if you are a first responder on the road - is that those vehicles relied on the camera-radar fusion," Schreiber said of cases concerning Tesla. "And what we are seeing happen in every one of these (crashes) is because the camera couldn't differentiate the flashing light. It either saw it as totally over-saturated or totally dark, and it couldn't make the assumption the human eye sees and then goes, ‘danger.'"
The Austin-based automaker has a history with its assisted and automated driving systems failing to heed warnings of emergency personnel. In 2021, a federal investigation was opened after Tesla's "Autopilot" system was tied to a series of collisions with parked emergency vehicles.
And in some instances, robotaxis can cause confusion among first responders. A December report details how a Tesla vehicle blocked a downtown intersection while firefighters were responding to an emergency, and the firefighters reported they could not see the markings indicating it was a robotaxi.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on Autopilot or its more advanced driver-assistance system used in robotaxi services, Full Self-Driving.
Heightened scrutiny
Federal regulators are scrutinizing several self-driving car companies operating in Austin over a number of other issues.
Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology is under investigation over collisions in low-visibility conditions, including a crash in which a pedestrian was fatally struck. The investigation covers incidents involving consumer vehicles, but Tesla notably uses Full Self-Driving technology in its robotaxi service.
Tesla's technology relies mainly on cameras, instead of additional technology such as lidar and radar sensors that other companies, including Waymo, Zoox and Avride, rely on. But even with overlapping sensors, other companies are facing investigations over safety concerns.
The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are investigating Waymo after vehicles failed to stop for school buses with extended stop arms on more than 25 occasions since August. In at least one instance, a remote human operator told the car to pass the bus.
The company later issued a nationwide recall after one of its vehicles was swept away in San Antonio floodwaters.
Avride is being probed after 16 crashes in Dallas and Austin in which it failed to detect other vehicles or objects. The Austin-based company is testing its autonomous vehicles in the city but has launched public services in Dallas on the Uber app.
In all, Avride has reported 24 crashes in Austin since June 2025. Tesla's count stands at 20, and Zoox has had two crashes. Waymo, with it's much larger fleet, has seen 113 crashes in the same period.
Amazon-owned Zoox, which recently began testing its purpose-built robotaxis in Austin, said it has engaged with first responders and city officials for training, especially because its vehicles do not have a steering wheel or foot pedals. The company plans to begin offering rides to a limited group by the end of the year.
The pitch for self-driving vehicles is to make roads safer, Center for Auto Safety executive director Michael Brooks told the Statesman. But the technology has not yet progressed that point, he said.
"These companies want growth to happen quickly, and they want to scale their operations very, very quickly in order to appeal to shareholders and investors," Brooks said. "But frankly, it's dangerous. They want to scale as rapidly as possible. But we need a slower and more safety-focused approach."
Amid a push for rapid expansion, Austin officials say the companies have been reluctant to engage publicly with local leaders - and under Texas law, they are not required to.
Though Waymo officials met privately with city staff, seats reserved for the company sat empty during an April special City Council committee meeting.
"What I'm a little bit flustered about is that they're just not committing to having a public conversation, which I think that's what creates transparency and buy-in and all that stuff," said Council Member Zo Qadri, whose district includes Buford's.
Autonomous vehicles have been regulated at the state level since a 2017 law stripped cities of authority over them. New rules taking effect this month will give the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles the power to suspend permits for autonomous vehicle companies.
"States like Texas and Florida have a much more reactive framework in place," Lohr said. "We really only see action taken when something goes terribly wrong, because there aren't tools in place to notice certain trends happening."
‘Two-way communication'
In emergency situations, first responders who come across a Waymo can dial a line dedicated to them at all hours, use the intercom inside the vehicle or scan a QR code by each mirror.
But even with all those options, emergency responders have still been blocked at times.
While Waymo announced late last year that it was offering an online safety course for first responders, companies have reportedly launched in some cities before providing training. Weeks after Waymo launched in Dallas and days after Tesla did, Dallas Police Department spokeswoman Allison Hudson said that, to her knowledge, neither company had offered training or otherwise communicated with police.
In a recent interview, Waymo officials said the company prides itself on interactions with first responders. Rob Patrick, who manages Waymo's first responder program and is a former California Highway Patrol officer, said the company has built a team of former first responders to ensure safety on all fronts.
"This program is not about checking a box. … It's about two-way communication that is ongoing and consistent," Patrick said. "It's about them being able to pick up a phone anytime, day or night, and reach one of us."
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, whose city has the largest number of driverless robotaxis in the country, said her city has embraced the technology and has had success communicating with Waymo in particular. Gallego said her city's police taught Waymo's autonomous driving system hand signals to help decrease incidents where the robotaxis misread cues.
Austin first responders told members of City Council at the April special committee meeting that requests to Waymo for additional meetings and training, including on hand signals, have gone unanswered or denied. Barna said Waymo has discussed and shared materials on hand signals with Austin police but hasn't received a follow-up training request.
Even when companies have systems for remote intervention, they can be strained during fast-moving emergencies.
During blackouts in San Francisco late last year, Waymo's robotaxis stalled 1,600 times, impeding emergency responders in some cases. While Waymo has 70 remote operators managing its fleet at any moment, the vehicles in that situation required a confirmation check from a person before proceeding, creating a backlog.
Peter Stone, a professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, said first responder situations are "tricky cases" because every situation is new. As a result, he said, the technology can't be trained and prepared with data as it can in regular traffic scenarios. And involving people outside of the autonomous vehicle company also carries risks.
Stone cautioned against allowing first responders to take control of the vehicles because they may be unfamiliar with the controls and operating environment. Meanwhile, hand signals run the risk of untrained people passing by commanding the vehicle or the autonomous vehicle responding incorrectly to signals.
"I believe it's feasible to respond to commonplace hand signals. The thing is - a first responder full of adrenaline - I don't think they're always going to use exactly the signal that we tell them to," Stone said. "I imagine it being very difficult to cover all the signals that you would reasonably assume a person would follow, making sure that the car would also follow them."
If there is a situation where there is an active crime scene, Stone believes remote operators could be one of the most reliable responses for now.
Whichever solution robotaxi operators find, they're under increased pressure to deploy it soon.
Qadri said he's toying with the idea of increasing fines for autonomous vehicles that break traffic laws. Austin police currently issue tickets to autonomous vehicles that break the law, but the relatively small fines are ineffective, he said.
"We need to have enforcement mechanisms where we can actually hurt their pocketbook," Qadri said. "When that vehicle stalled on West Sixth … if they were fined $50,000, maybe now they show up to the meeting. Maybe now they take things a little bit more seriously."
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