Waymo has submitted its initial responses to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of the regulator’s investigation into a January crash where one of its robotaxis struck a child. The first batch of documents appeared on NHTSA’s website Friday morning, though all of the content was redacted due to confidential business information. The agency said it is still reviewing other submissions from the company and will add them to the public investigation file once that review is complete. The posted responses indicate the probe is moving forward after Waymo received additional time to prepare its materials.
The investigation centers on a collision that took place on January 23 in Santa Monica, California. A Waymo Jaguar I-Pace was driving near a school when a nine-year-old girl stepped into the street. According to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board released in March, the vehicle was traveling at 17 miles per hour but braked and slowed to six miles per hour before hitting the student near its front-right headlight assembly. The child fell, walked to the curb, and reported minor injuries but did not require medical transport. The NTSB’s inquiry is separate from NHTSA’s, and the board typically issues a final detailed report after 12 months.
NHTSA announced it was looking into the crash a week after it happened and sent Waymo 12 questions, some with sub-questions, on March 23. The initial deadline for Waymo to respond to the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation was May 8, but the company requested an extension in a letter dated May 1. In that letter, Waymo’s senior director of safety, Matthew Schwall, wrote that the goal was for the company to provide relevant information to support the investigation while avoiding extraordinary production and review burdens for both parties. Waymo also asked NHTSA to clarify some of the questions in that same letter.
Waymo followed up with answers to certain questions in a second letter dated July 8. NHTSA granted the company additional time to respond to 10 of the 12 questions it had posed. Waymo told TechCrunch on Thursday that it has now completed all of its submissions to the regulator. The agency’s requests covered a wide range of topics, including how Waymo determines speed limits in school zones, whether it has received complaints about robotaxi behavior near schools, and documentation related to the company’s software.
The redacted filings do not reveal the substance of Waymo’s answers, but their presence on NHTSA’s site confirms that the company met its obligations after the extension. The case is one of several federal probes into autonomous vehicle safety, and it underscores the regulatory scrutiny facing robotaxi operators in U.S. cities. No further details from the investigation have been made public beyond the timeline and the documents’ existence.
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