SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 (San Francisco News Online) — Waymo has filed a voluntary recall covering 3,871 vehicles after federal safety regulators said its fifth-generation automated driving software may let a vehicle enter a closed freeway construction zone and keep driving, prompting the company to restrict freeway operations while it develops a fix.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the condition increases the risk of a crash. Waymo’s filing, identified as campaign number 26E035000, was dated June 12 and applies to U.S. vehicles equipped with the company’s fifth-generation automated driving system.
Waymo said the remedy is still under development. In the meantime, the company said it has modified the scope of vehicle operations to restrict freeway driving.
The recall is national in scope, but it has clear relevance in San Francisco because the filing reviewed incidents in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with earlier cases in Phoenix. The Bay Area incidents involved active freeway construction lanes, a setting that can affect regional travel and the handoff between city streets and freeway segments.
According to the filing summarized in Fox News’ reporting, Waymo reviewed one incident from April 11 in Phoenix and five more from April 19 there, when vehicles drove past ramp closure signs into pre-planned freeway construction zones.
The filing also reviewed seven incidents from May 18 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where vehicles entered active freeway construction lanes by driving between cones. Those incidents are the ones most directly tied to the Bay Area and the city’s transportation network.
Waymo said no collisions or injuries were reported in the incidents it reviewed. NHTSA said the danger is that a vehicle could move through a closed construction zone and continue at speed, which creates a crash risk for passengers, workers and nearby traffic.
CNBC reported that Waymo said it had voluntarily limited freeway operations last month while it made improvements and informed state and federal regulators before filing the recall. Waymo also said it continues to operate on surface streets in the cities where it serves passengers.
The company said it will update the automated driving software so vehicles can better detect construction zones and avoid entering them, and that the update will be provided free of charge. The filing does not give a completion date for the repair.
Waymo’s voluntary recall adds another federal safety review to a growing list of oversight actions around driverless vehicles operating on public roads. For San Francisco riders and drivers, the immediate change is not a full shutdown of service, but a narrower operating area while the company works on the software update.
The filing comes as Waymo continues to use freeway restrictions as an interim safety step. NHTSA’s report lists the recall as campaign number 26E035000, and the manufacturer report says the remedy remains under development.