The increasing number of incidents where an automated vehicle (AV), or robotaxi, interferes with emergency vehicles and first responders to the point where response is delayed or blocked has sparked the federal government to demand developers of those vehicles take action.

There is some debate, however, as to whether the real fault falls solely with the vehicles.

In a letter to developers, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration enumerated instances over the past few months where AVs interfered with law enforcement and other first responders, along with multiple instances in which AVs drove directly into active emergency scenes, blocked the paths of ambulances and firefighters, or failed to recognize and respond to basic safety conditions like flashing lights, flares, smoke, fire, and traffic cones.

“This is unacceptable. To state it bluntly: an AV that cannot safely interact with first responders is a danger to the general public,” wrote NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison, in the letter dated July 8, 2026.

He said the federal government launched what he termed “a major AV Framework” and hos, leveling the playing field so American innovators are not subject to stricter rules than foreign competitors, slashing redundant red tape, and plans to host the NHTSA’s first ever AV summit.

But Morrison clearly placed the onus on AV developers to fix the problem, demanding, “We expect you to prioritize first responder interactions and will schedule meetings with driverless automated driving system developers by month's end to hear your solutions.”

While the federal government has placed the blame for the dangerous situation on the vehicles themselves, there are experts in the field who insist that blame is misplaced, arguing the environment in which they travel is simply not ready for driverless vehicles.

Appearing before the a U.S. House committee in February, the head of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute acknowledged the role of AV developers but also called on the federal government to look beyond the vehicles themselves.

In his testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology in February, Dr. Henry Liu called for “a rigorous, evidence-based framework for AV safety testing and evaluation that earns public trust through independent, unbiased performance evidence; and AI-enabled digital infrastructure modernization that delivers measurable safety and mobility improvements at scale.”

He elaborated in an interview that while automated vehicles are involved in fewer accidents than those with human drivers, they still make a lot of mistakes, which at times have resulted in injuries and deaths, along with interfering with emergency vehicles.

The next step, he argued, should be using those mistakes as the basis for research, arguing, “if the society to a certain extent, accepts the accidents are going to happen, and allow some of the accidents going to happen as a mechanism to help the companies, to learn from these accidents,” Liu said in the interview.

He also contends cities must develop some sort of “plan B” for when its traffic control infrastructure is disabled by events such as earthquakes or storms, which could further send robotaxis on errant paths.

In his testimony, Liu also pressed for development of an AI-based digital infrastructure, contending, “most safety and mobility gains in the near term will come not from rebuilding roads, but from making existing roads smarter, especially intersections and corridors where risk, delay, and emissions concentrate.”

Tal Cohen, a founding partner at tech startup incubator, DriveTLV , posits a proper “habitat” in which AVs could more safely operate must be created that centralizes their guidance rather than depending on each company.

“The missing piece is not a smarter car,” said Cohen, in an interview. “It is the operating environment around it, the infrastructure, the rules, the records, the fallback, and the public trust that let a machine be relied on in the real world . I call that the habitat.”

He believes responsibility for such a habitat should fall on private industry rather than government, which, he said, operates too slowly.

Cohen may believe it’s not all the robocar’s fault and Dr. Liu is pushing for a federal safety evaluation framework, but for now, the NHTSA administrator is focusing the demand to improve AV safety on one entity, writing, “NHTSA is today issuing a call to action for AV developers and operators to immediately focus their resources on fixing this issue.”