'Horrifying Wake Up Call': CA Teamsters Demand Waymo's License Be Revoked

The Teamsters California union is calling for self-driving car company Waymo's license to operate in California to be revoked. This follows an incident that saw a Waymo self-driving vehicle hit a child in Santa Monica, CA, on January 23, 2025. In a statement on its website, Waymo argued that the relatively low severity of the injuries suffered by the child demonstrates the "material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver." The company claims that a human driver would likely have started braking later, hitting the pedestrian at a higher speed, and potentially leading to more severe consequences for the child.

In its statement, the NHTSA points out that the incident happened "within two blocks of a Santa Monica, CA elementary school during normal school drop off hours," a detail Waymo did not include in its statement.

The NHTSA's investigation of the incident has led Teamsters California to call for the California Public Utilities Commission to indefinitely suspend Waymo's license to operate, referring to the investigation itself as a "horrifying wake-up call for California policymakers." In their statement, Teamsters California co-chairs Peter Finn and Victor Mineros went on to state the incident is "emblematic of the broader goal Big Tech companies have to replace skilled human labor with AI" and that a "growing list of red flags concerning robotaxis" has been repeatedly ignored.

This is far from the first time a Waymo vehicle has been involved in a car crash, but other autonomous car companies have faced similar issues, too. Waymo has faced a series of high-profile incidents in recent months. It was caught driving through an active crime scene in December 2025; the same month, another Waymo vehicle ran over a dog. This was not the first time one of the company's cars injured a pet.

The company has had issues with school buses in the past, in some cases passing them while they had a stop-arm out and red blinking lights. Passing a bus in these conditions is illegal in California because the signal indicates the bus may be loading or unloading children. The NHTSA opened an investigation in December 2025, as Teamsters California noted in their recent statement.

Looking closely at NHTSA's statement on Waymo's most recent incident, it appears the agency is investigating a potential issue with how the company's autonomous vehicles approach school zones in general. The agency says its investigation will examine Waymo's Automated Driving System's "intended behavior in school zones and neighboring areas" without limiting itself to adherence to speed limits. According to the report, not only was the vehicle close to an elementary school during drop-off hours, but there appeared to have been a crossing guard, other children, and "several double-parked vehicles" in the area when the incident happened; all signals that could have led a human to drive more slowly in the first place.