For motorists watching from behind, the spectacle was anything but futuristic.
The Flooding Problem Was Already Known
Waymo’s troubles with floodwater came to a head in April.
On April 20, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered what the company described to federal regulators as an “untraversible flooded section of a roadway” in San Antonio during severe weather. Instead of stopping and avoiding the water, the vehicle proceeded into the flooded area.
The vehicle was eventually swept away by floodwaters.
No injuries were reported, but the incident triggered a major review of Waymo’s autonomous-driving software and its response to extreme weather.
Waymo subsequently filed a voluntary recall covering 3,791 vehicles equipped with its fifth- and sixth-generation automated-driving systems.
The defect was particularly concerning because the software could detect standing water, slow down and then continue forward rather than determining that the roadway was impassable.
NHTSA’s recall documentation warned that entering a flooded roadway could result in loss of vehicle control and increase the risk of a crash or injury.
As an interim measure, Waymo expanded weather-related restrictions and updated its maps while working toward a more complete software remedy.
That would seem to make another flooded-road incident especially significant.
Yet that is exactly what Phoenix motorists encountered.
Phoenix Video Raises New Questions
In September, a Waymo robotaxi found itself facing standing water on a Phoenix street.
Instead of simply turning around and continuing along another route, the vehicle repeatedly moved forward and backward.
Roger Pelkey recorded the incident and described what he was seeing as an “AI loop.”
“There were actually two Waymos holding up traffic,” Pelkey said.
The other vehicle eventually made it through, according to Pelkey. The second Waymo, however, continued struggling with the flooded roadway.
“This one was stuck in an AI loop and frustrating drivers,” he added.
The footage shows the robotaxi hesitating in the water and repeatedly changing direction. At one point, it appeared to move backward toward a vehicle behind it.
Fox Business reported that the vehicle remained caught in the behavior for more than 10 minutes.
That is the kind of situation that immediately raises questions about how autonomous systems handle unusual but entirely real-world conditions.
A human driver looking at a flooded section of roadway can make a judgment call: stop, turn around, find another route or wait for the water to recede.
The Waymo vehicle appeared unable to make that decision efficiently.
And This Wasn’t Waymo’s Only Software Problem
The floodwater issue is also not the only safety-related problem Waymo has faced this year.
In April, Waymo vehicles in Phoenix entered freeway construction zones after failing to recognize ramp-closure signs. Federal recall documents say there were six such incidents — one on April 11 and five on April 19.
The problem did not stop there.
Seven additional Waymo vehicles entered active freeway construction lanes in the San Francisco Bay Area in May.
Waymo’s Safety Board reviewed the issue in June and ultimately decided to conduct another recall involving the construction-zone behavior. The software remedy was designed to improve the vehicles’ ability to recognize and avoid closed construction areas.
So the flooding issue and construction-zone issue represent separate recalls, rather than one single defect.
But both involve the same fundamental challenge facing autonomous vehicles: recognizing an unusual road condition and responding appropriately before it becomes a safety problem.
Federal Regulators Have Been Watching
Waymo is also facing federal scrutiny over how its vehicles interact with stopped school buses.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation after reports that Waymo vehicles had repeatedly passed stopped school buses in Austin.
Austin Independent School District documented 19 incidents during the 2025-26 school year, according to federal correspondence. NHTSA specifically asked Waymo whether it had implemented an effective software fix and whether it planned to conduct a recall.
The issue continued into 2026.
The National Transportation Safety Board said a Waymo vehicle passed a stopped school bus in Austin on January 12 while the bus was loading students. The NTSB said the incident remained under investigation.
Separately, NHTSA has investigated an incident involving a Waymo vehicle and a child in Santa Monica.
The incidents do not establish that Waymo’s entire autonomous-driving system is unsafe. Waymo has pointed to its broader safety record and maintains that its technology can reduce certain types of crashes.
But each new incident provides regulators, consumers and policymakers with another real-world test of those claims.
The Big Question Is Trust
Waymo’s technology is designed to remove the human driver from the equation.
That creates an obvious expectation: when something unexpected happens, the machine should be able to respond safely.
Floodwater is hardly an unimaginable phenomenon in American cities. Neither are construction zones, road closures or stopped school buses.
Those are exactly the situations where autonomous-driving systems are expected to demonstrate their ability to recognize danger and respond appropriately.
Waymo has repeatedly said it is improving its technology and adding safeguards. The company has also temporarily restricted certain operations when severe weather creates additional risks.
But the Phoenix video creates an awkward question for the company.
If the software has already been updated specifically because Waymo vehicles were found to have trouble dealing with flooded roads, why was another robotaxi apparently caught struggling with standing water months later?
Waymo did not provide a response to Fox Business about the Phoenix footage at the time of publication.
And that leaves the video itself to tell the story.
A futuristic robotaxi was sitting in a flooded street, repeatedly moving forward and backward while ordinary drivers waited behind it.
The technology may be extraordinarily sophisticated.
But for the people stuck behind that Waymo, the immediate problem was remarkably simple:
There was water in the road — and the car didn’t appear to know what to do.
