You might have seen the viral video. It hit social media fast after a shooting in downtown Austin on March 1st. What it showed really got people talking: a self-driving Waymo car sitting right there, blocking an ambulance trying to get to the scene. Three people died, 15 were hurt. The sight of that driverless vehicle in the way quickly put a big spotlight on autonomous cars as they pop up more and more across major Texas cities. Picture this: paramedics are rushing to a chaotic scene at Buford’s, a popular spot on West 6th Street. The street's blocked. A Waymo vehicle is just sitting there. An onlooker in the video summed it up pretty well: “This is why we should not have self-driving cars.” Now, here’s a critical point to remember, and it speaks to the swift action of our first responders: local emergency officials say the incident didn't actually mess up their response too much. An Austin police officer managed to move the car within two minutes. That's fast. But even with that quick fix, the video tapped into a lot of worries people have about these cars sharing our roads. This is happening even though data often suggests autonomous vehicles are generally safer than human drivers. Adie Tomer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who studies transportation, points out that the fatality rate for these cars is already lower. The idea is, as the tech gets better, safety will too. Sounds good, right? But not everyone agrees these cars are ready for prime time. Tray Gober, an Austin personal injury lawyer who handles car crash cases and has been pretty vocal about Waymo, puts it simply: “Self-driving vehicles are the future. There will be less crashes because of self-driving vehicles. But the future isn’t today because these vehicles are not ready.” This wasn't a one-off thing, either. Austin has seen other hiccups. These cars have blocked traffic, ignored police officers, and, surprisingly, even illegally passed school buses when kids were getting on or off. Imagine that! Travis Pickford, assistant chief of the Austin ISD Police Department, voiced a major worry: “If we’re dealing with an incident at one of our schools, the last thing that I would want is any autonomous vehicle blocking emergency first responders from being able to quickly access to triage patients or get to the scene.” That’s a real public safety concern. Waymo, for its part, released a statement saying, “Safety is at the core of everything we do. We appreciate the dedication of first responders and remain committed to continuous learning to better serve our riders and the community.” Sounds good, but the issues keep popping up. Now, let's talk about the legal side of things, because that’s where it gets interesting for Texas. Back in 2017, state lawmakers decided that cities couldn't regulate autonomous vehicles. The thinking then was that this would help the industry grow. Fast forward to last year: state lawmakers told the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV) to create some new regulations for companies running these cars. The catch? Those new rules won't go into effect until May. That leaves a bit of a regulatory gap. Meanwhile, driverless cars are spreading out. Just the week before the Austin shooting, Waymo started deploying its vehicles in San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston. Other big names like Tesla, Volkswagen, and Zoox are also testing cars in Austin, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Austin has actually been a testing ground for these vehicles for almost a decade. Even though city officials can't make their own rules, they've been trying to work with these companies to smooth things out. They've also been collaborating with TxDMV, sharing local knowledge to help AVs operate safer. This is a classic example of local government trying to navigate state-imposed limits to protect its citizens. Let's get back to that officer who moved the Waymo car. He did it within a minute and a half, driving it into a parking garage. Jay Blazek Crossley, executive director of the nonprofit Farm & City, which pushes for transportation safety, said something important: “We already had a system where a police officer could get in that vehicle and move it. That didn’t exist four years ago.” This shows a significant policy change and adaptation by local emergency services. Austin officials confirmed that responders followed their established protocols for dealing with AVs. Waymo even has its own guide for law enforcement and says it offers training to first responders where it operates. Captain Christa Stedman, a spokesperson for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, emailed to say, “Our first responders are trained on how to manage driverless vehicles that become stopped or unresponsive. This type of scenario is something we prepare for, and it was resolved quickly without a significant impact to patient care or overall response operations.” Other cities are playing catch-up, too. Dallas emergency officials are still working on their protocols. San Antonio, on the other hand, seems a bit further along; their police and fire departments have received training and quick-reference guides on how to manage AVs, including how to contact the vendor and redirect vehicles. Waymo even met with San Antonio departments late last year to show them the ropes. Houston, interestingly, didn't comment on its readiness, which might leave you wondering about their local approach. The city of Austin has been tracking issues with self-driving cars since 2023, and their dashboard shows 230 incidents. These include collisions, near misses, cars ignoring police, blocking traffic, or causing other safety problems. Now, the good news is that actual collisions are pretty rare. For context, Travis County saw 15,872 vehicle crashes in 2024. Only two of those involved a self-driving car. So, while incidents happen, severe accidents are less common. Still, incidents, even minor ones, can pose real danger, especially when it comes to kids. Austin ISD officials found out last year that Waymo vehicles repeatedly passed school buses illegally with their stop signs deployed. No child has been hit *yet*, but Pickford worries it's a ticking clock. He brought up a Waymo car in California hitting a child in January, thankfully with only minor injuries. The Austin school district has issued 25 tickets to Waymo since August. What’s interesting here from a legal standpoint is that Waymo actually paid those tickets on time, which suggests they knew about the violations. When district officials met with Waymo in November, company reps initially pushed back on the idea that the cars were a threat and wouldn't agree to pause operations during school pickup and drop-off times. Pickford noted that human drivers usually learn after a ticket; these Waymos weren't. That's a different kind of liability challenge, isn't it? Eventually, Waymo did issue a software update in November. In December, they even collected data on the district’s school buses to teach their cars how to better recognize and respond to bus signals. That same month, Waymo had a software recall because its buses (the self-driving kind, not school buses) also failed to yield to school buses in Atlanta. This came two months after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) started looking into the company. Now, both the NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating Waymo for its vehicles’ failure to stop for school buses. The NTSB recently released a preliminary report that pinpointed a human error: a remote assistance agent for Waymo incorrectly told a car it could pass an Austin ISD bus in January. This highlights the complex interplay of software, hardware, and human oversight in AV safety and liability. All this leads us back to Texas’s own regulatory framework, which is finally shaping up. Starting at the end of May, autonomous vehicle operators will need state authorization from the TxDMV before they can carry passengers. To get that, companies have to certify, in writing, that their vehicles can follow all traffic and motor vehicle laws. They also have to provide a detailed plan explaining how emergency responders should interact with their automated vehicles. This new framework aims to establish clear legal responsibilities and protocols, hopefully addressing many of the concerns raised by incidents like the one in Austin. It’s a big step in trying to balance pushing forward with new technology and keeping us all safe on the roads.