NHTSA, the US road safety agency, ordered autonomous ride hail developers to fix driverless cars that block ambulances, freeze at flashing lights, and ignore hand signals before end of July meetings.
The federal agency that oversees US road safety has put autonomous ride-hail developers on a clock. NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison has ordered the companies to fix driverless cars that block ambulances, freeze at flashing lights, and ignore hand signals, with company-by-company meetings scheduled by the end of July to hear their plans. "An AV that cannot safely interact with first responders is a danger to the general public," Morrison wrote in a public letter this month.
The letter, first reported by WIRED, calls the pattern "unacceptable" and frames itself as a "call to action." NHTSA documented what it called a "clear pattern" of interference over the last several months: driverless vehicles driving into active emergency scenes, blocking ambulances and firefighters, and failing to respond to flashing lights, fire, and traffic cones. Morrison directed developers to "immediately focus their resources on fixing this issue."
The most pointed case in the underlying reporting: an Austin police official told WIRED that a Waymo sat in front of an ambulance for roughly two minutes during the response to a mass shooting, forcing crews to maneuver around the vehicle while treating victims. The same officer said Waymos routinely freeze at intersections and ignore hand signals from officers directing traffic. In the outlet's reporting, San Francisco's fire chief said Waymos frequently block access to fire stations, and a city official described the company's technology as "backsliding." Officials from multiple city law-enforcement and fire departments have separately raised the pattern with NHTSA.
WIRED's earlier follow-up tracked a worsening series of first-responder interactions with Waymo vehicles. NHTSA's letter pulls those local reports into a federal docket. The agency's press release and supporting request for information lay out the failure modes further.
Waymo and Zoox, the two developers most often named in the documented incidents, did not respond to WIRED's request for comment as of publication. NHTSA did not name either company in its letter; it addressed "developers" broadly. TechCrunch and AutoConnectedCar carried the agency's framing in parallel coverage.
NHTSA has scheduled meetings with each developer for before the end of July. What the companies bring to those meetings, and how Morrison responds, will determine whether the public letter is followed by enforcement.