An Insurance Expert Appraises the Safety Record of Self-Driving Cars
Are autonomous vehicles operated by companies like Waymo and Tesla making the streets safer? The insurance industry’s research arm is watching closely.
A Waymo autonomous taxi outside the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. A
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergWaymo has a school bus problem.
The self-driving subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is struggling to keep its ride-hailing vehicles from passing yellow buses that have stopped to pick up or drop off children. Robotaxis in Austin and Atlanta have repeatedly been caught in the act, even after Waymo announced a voluntary recall in December in an effort to resolve the issue. On Jan. 23, the National Transportation Safety Board followed the National Highway Administration in opening a probe.