The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this week warned Autonomous Vehicle (AV) companies that their vehicles’ interference with emergency response operations is “unacceptable.” The federal regulator called on AV system designers and operators to “immediately focus their resources on fixing this issue.”
This got me thinking.
How often do robotaxis interfere with emergency responders? How much do these incidents cost the local community? Who bears the burden?
To earn public trust, AV companies are now being asked to go beyond basic technology (measured in crash rates) and demonstrate tangible social and economic responsibility.
Emergency responders
Let’s start with a dive into robotaxi-emergency responder mishaps.
In the NHTSA letter, administrator Jonathan Morrison flagged as “a disturbing trend … a clear pattern of driverless AVs interfering with law enforcement and other first responders.” He noted multiple instances in which “AVs drove directly into active emergency scenes, blocked the paths of ambulances and firefighters, or failed to recognize and respond to basic safety conditions like flashing lights, flares, smoke, fire, and traffic cones.”
Over the years, AV industry observers—not to mention innocent bystanders—have seen numerous images or videos of robotaxis driving obliviously into trouble. These scenes, however, are anecdotal and sporadic. Often, social media treats them as a source of entertainment, without serious discussion and scant explanation from AV companies. There has been little follow-up by the federal safety regulator— until now.
Public officials are starting to press questions. How often does this stuff happen? How bad are these cases? Why do they keep happening?
I contacted Rachel Castignoli, senior consultant for transportation and public works in Austin, Texas. She’s been spearheading a project to keep tabs on all incidents involving autonomous vehicles that are reported by emergency responders, residents and city employees.
Details are gathered, categorized and fed into a public dashboard here: https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/dbd59d9b20634de1afad32a8267b739b#
I filtered the list down to just reports by the Austin Fire Department (AFD), Police Department (APD), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and Independent School District (AISD) Police, highlighting only the incidents affecting first responders.
From April to June 2026, the city of Austin counted 47 incidents of robotaxi interference with emergency responders. Last month alone (June 2026), the AFD, APD, EMS and AISD police recorded 16 AV incidents.
Castignoli noted that the recorded incidents on the list do “NOT” include those reported only on social media, or self-reported by the AV company.
It’s important to note that it was five years ago when the first robotaxis commercially rolled out on public streets in the United States. Given that experience, the big surprise is that AVs still haven’t learned how to cope with ambulances and fire engines.
As the list documented in Austin shows, mishaps caused by socially awkward robotaxis reported by emergency responders are hardly once-in-a-blue-moon.
Nonetheless, these mishaps tend to be brushed off as occasional, isolated “edge cases.”
NHTSA’s administrator, in his letter, sounded an alarm against this laissez-faire tendency: “Let me be clear: the inability to detect and appropriately respond to such situations represents a functional insufficiency. Emergency scenes are not rare or extreme ‘edge cases’.”
Training offered by AV companies
Right after NHTSA warned AV companies about interfering with emergency responders, a social media post from robotaxi industry leader Waymo touted its “First Responder Outreach” program. The company claimed that it has conducted in-person training of more than 35,000 first responders across the United States.
Education is critical. First responders should know how to interact with AVs.
But shouldn’t AVs know how to interact with first responders? Does Waymo have a “program” for that?
Setting aside that issue, Waymo stressed that its in-person training is complemented by online programs. It offers safety education—free of charge—to professionals who take an oath to serve, protect people and save lives.
The company’s safety training programs cover “how Waymo AVs recognize and respond to emergency operations, detailed instructions for approaching and interacting with the vehicle and critical safety and extrication procedures, including how to disconnect the battery.”
The AV company’s free safety-training pitch doesn’t calculate the time, resources and taxpayers’ money a city must spare, sending its emergency responders to AV school. Castignoli declined to comment on such costs.
Although Texas law does not require AV companies to train first responders, Castignoli noted, “Our first responders undergo a lot of continuous training throughout their careers, and we try to offer many AV training opportunities so as not to burden the system too much.”
Typically, she said, “We set up at least six trainings over three days to accommodate the shift system at the fire department—by offering night training for folks who work nights.” The training, she said, takes an hour.
However, this hour multiplies because every AV company’s different vehicle models demand different procedures for emergency responders.
Given the number of AVs on its streets, Castignoli stressed, “We definitely want the opportunity to train on the vehicles.”
Collaboration between AV companies and cities
The city of Austin is offering AV companies extensive collaboration. Examples include “sharing maps and information that could be useful to AV companies (school zones, valet areas, special event closures) … AV companies do receive communication directly from our 911 dispatch system which should allow them to create timely exclusion zones around major emergencies,” she noted.
Not clear, however, are reciprocal data/information exchanges between cities and AV companies. For instance, AV companies haven’t told Austin how many of their vehicles are in operation.
Texas state law requires each AV to be registered with the DMV. “We know how many are in the state, but not how many are operating in Austin,” Castignoli said.
This matters.
“There is data that would help us improve our policies and procedures around AVs and separate data that could help us with transportation planning more broadly,” she said. “If we know the location of AV issues (disengagements, etc.) we can work on the infrastructure or other issues in the road that may have caused it.”
This need motivated the city to develop an incident map, explained Castignoli, hoping to enable AV companies “to identify patterns,” and figure out “how to fix them.”
911 calls
Less publicized by the media is the issue of robotaxi passengers, impaired by drugs or alcohol, who fall asleep or pass out, and don’t exit the vehicle at their destination.
A robotaxi with no human driver cannot diagnose an inert passenger. The cab’s remote assistant, hundreds or thousands of miles away, cannot tell if the passenger is breathing. The robotaxi’s programmed solution is a 911 call. Austin’s first responders handled 99 of these mostly false alarms between March and December of 2025. Each, however, had to be treated as a cardiac arrest dispatch involving multiple ambulances, a fire truck, and sometimes police.
Only two to three percent of these passengers needed to be transported by EMR.
Inconsistent information from AV companies hinders emergency responders’ ability to triage the situation with the right resources.
Such spurious emergencies are not a freshly discovered inconvenience. Austin broached the issues with Waymo more than two years ago. In a Special Joint Meeting of the city’s Public Safety and Mobility Committee last April (https://austintx.new.swagit.com/videos/384367 ), EMR officials noted, “We’re still unclear on the capabilities of their remote support to communicate with the individual in that vehicle, whether that’s through noise communication, whether they have a video feed in the vehicle, or if they can, they can make noises inside of the patient compartmentalize the world.”
Accountability
Castignoli stressed that Austin has “good communication” with AV companies.
But she indicated, “We continue to struggle with not really having a way to hold AVs accountable for issues.”
A recent change to Texas law allows Austin to report unsafe AV behavior to the Texas DMV. “That is great, “she noted. “But it is frustrating to have issues repeat themselves when we have communicated clearly that we need AVs to do better (with hand signals, school buses, etc).”
Individual cases reported in Austin last month
Here are examples of recent incidents in which AVs were cited for interfering with Austin’s emergency responders last month.
June 30, 2026, AFD report
At approximately 2305 hours a WAYMO utilized a private parking lot to circumnavigate a police barricade on a fatality collision. It then turned onto the closed section of roadway and started driving towards the scene itself where Officers were on foot and the body was still present. I stopped the vehicle and was able to call the WAYMO hotline to have it turned around…
June 23, 2026, APD report
While working an intersection closure for a traffic light, between 9:30 and 9:35am today, at Schriber turning Eastbound onto Oltorf, I was giving the Robotaxi vehicle very clear directions to turn right (Westbound), but it was hellbent on turning only left and seemed very confused at hand signal directions. This was a new black Model Y that had no driver or passenger and was marked with “Robotaxi” emblems on the sides. This was not one of the gold colored prototype Robotaxi vehicles that we’re seeing in more frequency. The vehicle never complied with hand signals and we eventually allowed it to turn.
June 19, 2026, AFD report
ENG13 was responding to a motor vehicle collision. While making a left turn to the accident a WAYMO drove forward and clipped the side of the engine with its left rear camera.
June 13, 2026, AFD report
ENG01 was attempting to make a right turn from E 8th street to northbound Red River Street. Waymo was headed southbound on Red River Street. ENG01 turn took them partially and briefly into southbound traffic in front of the Waymo. Autonomous vehicle could not figure out how to get out of the way of ENG01 while emergency lights were on. Autonomous vehicle attempted to back up and move forward several times, blocking both directions of traffic until eventually backing up and driving backwards and northbound Red River until it found a spot to get out of the way.
June 10, 2026, APD report On 6/10
Vehicle stopped abruptly in intersection; I blocked oncoming traffic; before I could contact Waymo, vehicle continued and almost struck another motorist; I stopped the vehicle and made contact with operator Caleb 3334128. Lt White: “This occurred at E 6th St and San Jacinto. I confirmed that the Waymo was in the intersection. A vehicle was about to turn right on red when the Waymo suddenly shot forward almost striking the vehicle that managed to brake in time.”
June 2, 2026, AFD report
Engine 6 was responding code 3 to a traffic injury. We were traveling in the left lane and the WAYMO was in the left lane in front of us. They are usually really good about moving to the right, however, this time, it seemed as if it could not make up its mind. The WAYMO slowed down, turned its hazards on, then turned left slightly, then back to the right, then to the left, and came to a stop. Engine 6 did not pass the WAYMO, we were unsure of its next move, until it finally decided to pull all the way to the right.
Bottom line:
With the NHTSA’s latest letter, AV companies are clearly put on notice. Most likely, recalls are the only pathway left for robotaxi companies to take in responding to NHTSA’s request.
But this comes with some serious concerns and challenges.
If the past is prelude, can recalls actually fix the problems of AVs interfering with emergency responders?
Thus far, certain workarounds and software updates introduced by AV companies to prevent their vehicles from driving into flood water, passing school buses with a flashing red light, or running into construction zones have not worked. Given repeated offences, AV companies can’t declare their software patches successful.
Adding even more complexity for robotaxis are emergency situations unfolding and altering the physical world on a minute-by-minute basis.
Expect a long journey for AVs to become careful and competent drivers.