U.S. Regulators Demand Self-Driving Cars Address Interference with Emergency Vehicles

Jonathan Morrison, head of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), recently sent a letter to the autonomous vehicle industry highlighting multiple incidents in which self-driving vehicles interfered with law enforcement and first responders carrying out their duties, and urged companies to address the issue promptly. NHTSA has documented cases of autonomous vehicles entering emergency scenes, blocking ambulances and fire trucks, and failing to recognize basic safety cues such as warning lights, signal flares, smoke, fire, and traffic cones. Morrison emphasized that such behavior indicates functional deficiencies in these systems and poses a danger to the public if the vehicles cannot safely interact with emergency personnel. NHTSA plans to meet with autonomous vehicle developers by the end of this month to solicit solutions and has asked both developers and operators to treat this issue as a top priority. According to media reports, in late May, a Waymo autonomous vehicle partially blocked a fire truck responding to a blaze in Dallas, Texas. Previous incidents have also involved Waymo vehicles obstructing ambulances and driving through active police scenes. Currently, NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are separately investigating two incidents involving Waymo: one in which a Waymo vehicle drove past a stopped school bus with its warning lights activated—potentially violating Texas state law—and another that occurred on January 23 in a school zone in Santa Monica, California, where a Waymo autonomous vehicle struck a 9-year-old girl who had run out from behind a double-parked SUV to cross the street on her way to school.