Two Crises. One Day. Zero Finished Fixes.

Waymo woke up Wednesday facing one embarrassing problem. It ended Thursday with two.

According to TechCrunch, a Waymo robotaxi drove into a flooded Atlanta intersection on May 21, 2026, got stuck for roughly an hour, and had to be physically recovered. That triggered a service pause in Atlanta — joining San Antonio, where service has already been halted for weeks after a separate vehicle was swept away by floodwaters last month.

By Thursday evening, Waymo had also paused operations in Dallas and Houston due to severe weather forecasts across Texas. Four cities. All offline.

Then, separately, Waymo confirmed to TechCrunch that it is suspending ALL freeway operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami — the only four cities where highway rides were even available — because its vehicles are struggling in freeway construction zones.

Two distinct problems. Two distinct pauses. Zero timeline given for either fix.

The Recall That Didn't Work

Waymo already issued a software recall to address the flooding problem. It didn't work.

When a San Antonio Waymo was swept away by floodwaters last month, Waymo issued a recall covering 3,791 vehicles, according to the SF Standard. The company shipped a software update placing restrictions in areas with elevated flood risk at higher-speed roads, per documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Then an Atlanta Waymo drove straight into floodwaters anyway.

Waymo told TechCrunch its system relies on National Weather Service alerts — flash flood warnings, watches, and advisories — as part of its signal set. The Atlanta storm moved faster than the government's warning system. Flooding started before any alert was issued. The car had no way to know.

That's a fundamental design gap.

Construction Zones: Also Unresolved

On the freeway side, Waymo gave even less detail. The company told TechCrunch it is "integrating recent technical learnings into our software" and expects to resume "soon" — with no specific date offered.

Waymo said its vehicles navigate construction zones more than 10,000 times per day, according to Fox Business. The company is using the pause to improve performance.

What triggered the pause? On May 19, X user @Elliot_slade posted a video claiming his Waymo ride blew through construction cones on a freeway and was subsequently chased by police, according to both TechCrunch and the SF Standard. Waymo has NOT confirmed that specific incident as the cause — but the timing is hard to ignore.

A Pattern of Patches

Waymo has a documented history of shipping patches that don't fully solve the problem.

The SF Standard notes Waymo previously issued recalls after vehicles in Phoenix crashed into the same car being towed, collided with gates and telephone poles, and behaved erratically around school buses. TechCrunch reported that after Waymo shipped a fix for illegally passing stopped school buses, its fleet continued making the same illegal maneuvers. That school bus behavior is now the subject of two active federal investigations — one by NHTSA and one by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Separately, NHTSA is investigating a January incident in which a Waymo struck a child near a school in Santa Monica. The child sustained minor injuries, per the SF Standard.

What NHTSA Is Doing

A NHTSA spokesperson told TechCrunch the agency "is aware of this incident, is in communication with Waymo, and will take appropriate action if necessary" regarding the Atlanta flooding event.

Given that NHTSA already has two open investigations into Waymo, a third incident cluster is not a great look. Whether the agency escalates depends on whether Waymo can actually fix these problems — not just issue another patch that breaks down in the next rainstorm.

The Expansion Problem

Waymo's stated goal, per TechCrunch, is to offer one million paid rides per week by the end of 2026. The company is also testing a new Zeekr-built vehicle called Ojai and planning to expand to new cities worldwide.

They are trying to scale a system that currently can't handle rain or orange cones.

Freeway service was critical to Waymo's urban expansion pitch — particularly in the Bay Area, where highway routes cut trips from 45-60+ minutes down dramatically. Pulling those routes doesn't just inconvenience riders. It weakens the core value proposition Waymo has been selling to new markets.

Current Status

For regular people in Atlanta, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami: Waymo service is either paused or degraded right now, with no firm return date. If you were counting on a robotaxi to the airport via the freeway, you're taking Uber.

Waymo is pushing aggressive expansion while its core software still can't handle common real-world conditions. Rain happens. Construction happens. These aren't edge cases. A stuck car that already had a recall issued for exactly this problem suggests the fix failed, not that safety systems worked as intended.