A robotaxi ride can feel abrupt, and sometimes that feeling reflects a real safety problem. Most rough moments do not. The useful question for a passenger is not “was this uncomfortable?” but “did the vehicle do something that could endanger someone, and does it keep happening?” Public records can help answer the second question, but they do not measure ride comfort, and they cannot tell you from one trip whether the software is at fault.
Separate an uncomfortable ride from a possible safety defect
A startling stop or a lurch through a turn is an observation. It becomes a safety concern when it involves a hazard to people or property, when it is unexpected in a way that could cause a collision, or when it repeats. Regulators look at the second category. Public crash and incident data do not include a passenger-comfort or smoothness rating, and no standardized ride-quality score for robotaxis was identified in the sources reviewed for this article.
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That distinction matters for two reasons. First, a single abrupt stop often has a situational explanation: a pedestrian stepping off a curb, a cyclist cutting across a lane, or a vehicle ahead braking suddenly. Second, a report from a passenger is an input to an investigation, not a finding. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says its incident reports are not necessarily complete and that they are used to identify events for follow-up.
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Four patterns deserve attention. None of them proves a defect on its own, but each is worth recording if it happens more than once or involves people outside the car.
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Abrupt or repeated hard braking
Hard braking that comes without an obvious cause is the behavior with the strongest documented safety history. In its investigation of Zoox hard-braking events (preliminary evaluation PE24015), NHTSA examined unexpectedly hard braking and identified four associated collisions involving vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders, three of which resulted in injury. The agency’s own summary states: “These unexpected braking events can increase the risk of a collision.” Zoox remedied the software issue, and NHTSA closed the preliminary evaluation based on the data available to it. A recall remedy and a closed evaluation are not the same as a guarantee that the behavior cannot recur, so a new pattern is still worth reporting.
Unusual movement after a collision or near-collision
A vehicle that moves when it should remain still after contact with a person or object is a serious concern. A May 2025 incident described in an official Zoox recall report (Part 573 Recall Report 25E037) shows what this looks like in practice. An e-scooter rider struck an unoccupied, stopped Zoox robotaxi and fell beside it. The vehicle then moved without contacting the rider. The initial collision caused minor injuries. Zoox paused operations, updated its software and resumed service after deployment. This is a single documented event, and it does not show that robotaxis routinely behave this way.
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Confusing behavior around pedestrians, cyclists and scooters
Watch whether the vehicle’s stops and starts seem hesitant, whether it pauses unpredictably in a travel lane, or whether it appears to misjudge the movements of people outside the car. A passenger cannot see the system’s perception data, so describe what you saw rather than why it happened. “The car stopped in the bike lane for several seconds, then pulled forward while a cyclist was beside it” is a useful report. “The software is broken” is not something you can verify from inside the vehicle.
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Some incidents involve a vehicle that stops in a place where it cannot continue, or that repeatedly attempts a maneuver it does not complete. A single occurrence in a difficult traffic situation is common enough to be expected in any driving system. Repeated attempts, or a stop that appears to block traffic or a crosswalk, merit a report to the operator and, if the event involved a safety risk, to NHTSA.
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What the documented cases do and do not establish
Three public accounts show how incidents move from a passenger’s experience into the official record. They are the best evidence available for what to watch for, and each has limits.
| Event | Who published the account | What it established | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoox hard-braking events, PE24015 | NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation, 2025 | Four collisions involving vulnerable road users, three with injury; Zoox remedied the software issue; preliminary evaluation closed on available data | How often hard braking occurs across all trips, or whether other operators have the same behavior |
| Zoox e-scooter collision, May 2025 (recall report 25E037) | Zoox, in a Part 573 recall report | An unoccupied stopped robotaxi was struck by a scooter; the vehicle later moved without contacting the rider; operations were paused, software updated and service resumed | The cause of the movement beyond the company’s account, or any broader frequency |
| Two Phoenix incidents, December 11, 2023 | Waymo, in a February 2024 voluntary recall post | No injuries and minor vehicle damage; a software remedy was issued after consultation with NHTSA | Independent confirmation of the scenario’s details, which come from the company’s own account |
Waymo’s February 2024 post described its decision this way: “We chose to do this after consultation with NHTSA and our own internal review of two incidents that occurred in a rare scenario in Phoenix on December 11, 2023, which resulted in no injuries and minor vehicle damage.” The account is useful because it shows a company responding to a rare scenario through a recall, but it is the company’s own description.
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How to read public crash data and operator safety claims
Companies and regulators publish numbers that look comparable but often are not. Before drawing a conclusion from any of them, check the following.
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- Exposure: How many miles were driven, in which cities, on which road types, and over what period. Waymo’s Safety Impact dashboard reported 271.3 million rider-only miles through June 2026; that is a company-published figure, not a regulator’s count.
- Outcome definition: All reported crashes, crashes with injury, serious injuries and airbag deployments are different measures and cannot be ranked against each other.
- Completeness: NHTSA warns that companies report the incidents they know about, that access to crash data differs between operators, and that initial submissions can be incomplete or unverified. The agency’s Standing General Order FAQ advises: “Use caution when attempting to compare crash data between entities.”
- Benchmark alignment: Waymo compares its crash rates with human-driver benchmarks for surface streets in the cities where it operates, and says it applies spatial adjustments and a correction for underreported injury crashes. Those methods are the company’s and should be attributed as such.
- Publication quality: The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) publishes autonomous vehicle reports, but some Waymo and Zoox fields are redacted pending confidentiality review, and Zoox pilot reports were updated to correct reporting-methodology errors.
Do not treat raw incident totals as a safety ranking. An operator with more miles may report more incidents, and an operator with fewer miles may report fewer simply because it is driving less. An operator’s own comparison is a claim to be checked, not an independent regulatory finding.
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What to do during and after a concerning event
- Follow the vehicle’s instructions for any immediate hazard. If the vehicle is in a dangerous position, use the in-vehicle emergency or assistance controls the operator provides, and call emergency services if anyone is hurt.
- Once you are safe, write down the basics. Record the date, approximate time, city, the operator and vehicle if you can identify them, what the vehicle did, and whether anyone was affected.
- Describe the behavior, not the cause. Say what the car did, where it was relative to people or other vehicles, and how long it lasted. Leave out speculation about software.
- Protect other people’s privacy. Do not share other passengers’ personal details or post identifiable footage of bystanders when you report.
- Report through the operator’s support route. The sources reviewed do not establish current in-app support steps for every operator, so use the contact method shown in the operator’s app or on its ride-support page.
- Report a witnessed safety issue to NHTSA. The agency accepts public reports of automated-vehicle safety issues online and through its Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236.
NHTSA’s Standing General Order reporting duties apply to named manufacturers, developers and operators, not to individual riders. A passenger’s report is still useful because it can help the agency decide which events need follow-up.
Regulatory context as of October 2026
NHTSA’s Standing General Order is designed to give timely notice of incidents that may reveal potential safety defects. The agency periodically releases the public reports, and it says those data are intended to help identify cases for follow-up rather than to serve as a complete record.
In 2026, NHTSA announced that it had granted Zoox a temporary exemption that allows commercial deployment of up to 2,500 vehicles annually for two years, subject to oversight. The agency said it is also pursuing performance standards for automated vehicles. That exemption is a dated regulatory decision. It is not a general assurance about the ride quality or safety of every robotaxi.
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Recall status and operator service changes can move quickly. Check NHTSA’s recall database and the operator’s current service notices before drawing conclusions about a specific vehicle or model, and check the CPUC’s Autonomous Vehicle Quarterly Reporting portal for the reporting periods that are currently available, which run through 2026 in the records reviewed.
Use these sources to decide what a pattern means, not to decide whether one ride was acceptable. A ride that felt wrong is worth reporting. A ride that repeated a documented hazard, or that moved unexpectedly around people, is the kind of event that regulators follow up on.
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