Who Is Liable After a Waymo Accident in Miami?
Last updated: September 18, 2026
Waymo's driverless taxis are now carrying paying passengers all over South Florida — no driver, no safety monitor, nobody behind the wheel to take control if something goes wrong. For most riders that's the appeal. For anyone injured by one of these vehicles, in it or outside it, it raises a question Florida law had never really had to answer until recently: when the "driver" is software, who pays?
This page walks through where the technology came from, Florida's current AV footprint, who legally owns the cars, and how Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine interacts — imperfectly, and not yet definitively — with a vehicle that has no human operator at all.
A Brief History: From Google's Prius to Florida's Highways
Waymo began in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, under the leadership of Sebastian Thrun, founder of Google X. Early testing used modified Toyota Priuses navigating California roads. In December 2016, Alphabet Inc. spun the project off into an independent subsidiary, Waymo LLC, which launched the world's first commercial autonomous ride-hailing service, Waymo One, in the Phoenix area in late 2018. Florida's own legal history with autonomous vehicles moved in parallel, and Florida moved faster than almost anywhere else:
2012 — HB 1207. Sponsored by Jeff Brandes while he was a member of the Florida House of Representatives(he moved to the Florida Senate later that year, on November 6, 2012), this was one of the first laws in the country addressing autonomous vehicles, permitting a licensed human operator to test the technology on public roads.
2016 — HB 7027. This is the amendment most personal injury lawyers mean when they say "Florida legalized self-driving cars." It rewrote § 316.85, Fla. Stat., to say a licensed human operator is not required to operate a fully autonomous vehicle, and that such a vehicle may operate "regardless of whether a human operator is physically present in the vehicle."
2019 — HB 311 (ch. 2019-101). Added the insurance-requirements framework now codified at § 627.749, Fla. Stat., and folded on-demand autonomous vehicle networks into Florida's transportation-network-company statute, § 627.748.
January 22, 2026 — Waymo goes live in Miami with invitation-only rides, its sixth U.S. market.
April 15, 2026 — Waymo opens to everyone in Miami and Orlando, removing the invitation waitlist and introducing highway driving in both markets (Waymo, WLRN).
September 1, 2026 — Waymo begins rides in Tampa, alongside simultaneous launches in Denver and San Diego, bringing Waymo to 14 U.S. cities total (TechCrunch, Tampa Bay Times).
Because Waymo's national footprint is expanding quickly and will keep changing, this page tracks only the Florida-specific timeline above rather than a national city list, which would go stale fast.
Who Actually Owns the Vehicles?
This matters because Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine (below) generally attaches to whoever is the legal owner of a vehicle.
Waymo LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., designs and operates the Automated Driving System (ADS). Waymo's own announcement of the Moove partnership describes Waymo as remaining responsible for the Waymo Driver (the ADS itself), while Moove is described as responsible for fleet operations, facilities, and charging.
Moove, a mobility and fleet-management company, is Waymo's local operating partner in Florida, running service hubs — including one on NW South River Drive in Miami — for charging, cleaning, sensor maintenance, and mechanical upkeep.
NHTSA recall filings identify Waymo as the owner of the affected vehicles in its recalls generally, which supports the inference that Waymo LLC (or a titling subsidiary) holds title to its fleet as a matter of course. Neither Waymo's announcement nor the NHTSA filings definitively establish title to any specific vehicle involved in a given incident. The registered owner and applicable insurance for a particular crash have to be confirmed through the crash report, vehicle registration records, and formal discovery — not assumed from press coverage of the Waymo-Moove partnership.
Florida's Dangerous Instrumentality Doctrine — An Unresolved Question, Not a Settled One
Florida has held, since 1920, that a motor vehicle is a "dangerous instrumentality" and that a vehicle's owner can be held liable for injuries it causes to someone driving with the owner's permission, regardless of whether the owner personally did anything wrong. Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Anderson, 80 Fla. 441, 86 So. 629 (Fla. 1920).
Florida's autonomous-vehicle statute adds a wrinkle: under § 316.85(3)(a), Fla. Stat., "the automated driving system, when engaged, shall be deemed to be the operator of an autonomous vehicle, regardless of whether a person is physically present in the vehicle." It's tempting to read that as making the software "the driver" for all legal purposes, including civil liability. That reading goes further than the statute actually says.
Section 316.85 is part of Chapter 316 — Florida's Uniform Traffic Control chapter — and its operator-designation language is written to satisfy traffic law compliance: it answers who has to obey the speed limit, stop at the light, and so on, not who bears tort liability when someone is hurt. The statute itself is qualified — its definitions apply "unless the context otherwise requires" — and it does not expressly make the ADS a legal person, and it does not purport to resolve how common-law tort doctrines like dangerous instrumentality apply to a vehicle with no human operator.
So the honest framing is this: there is a strong argument that dangerous-instrumentality liability and direct liability for the ADS's own conduct point toward the same defendant — the fleet owner — since that owner also designed and controls the "operator." But no published Florida appellate decision has resolved how the doctrine applies when the "operator" is software rather than a person, and this page should be read as flagging an open legal question, not announcing the answer.
Who Can Be Held Liable After a Waymo Accident?
Several theories can apply to the same crash, and identifying the right defendant is fact-dependent rather than automatic:
Waymo LLC, as the vehicle's likely titled owner, under the dangerous instrumentality doctrine — subject to the caveat above about how that doctrine actually interacts with an AV "operator."
Waymo LLC, separately, for its own negligence in designing, testing, deploying, monitoring, or updating the ADS, if a specific driving decision or software behavior caused the crash.
The vehicle or component manufacturer, and relevant component suppliers, under Florida's strict products liability doctrine — which Florida adopted in West v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 336 So. 2d 80 (Fla. 1976) — if a defect in the base vehicle or a hardware component caused or contributed to the crash. Florida has not squarely decided whether stand-alone driving software, apart from the vehicle it operates, itself qualifies as a "product" for strict-liability purposes; a products claim aimed at the integrated vehicle-and-ADS system is on firmer footing than one aimed at the software in isolation, and which framing fits depends on the facts.
Moove, or another local fleet-management contractor, if a maintenance failure — bad brakes, worn tires, an uncleaned or uncalibrated sensor — contributed to the crash.
A third-party driver or other negligent road user, in the (still far more common) scenario where a human driver, cyclist, or pedestrian causes or contributes to the collision. Florida's comparative fault statute, § 768.81, Fla. Stat., applies regardless of who or what else is a defendant: fault the jury assigns to a third party reduces recovery proportionally, and a plaintiff found more than 50% at fault under the 2023 tort-reform law (HB 837) is barred from recovering at all. Owning the vehicle involved does not, by itself, prevent fault from being apportioned to other negligent parties in the same crash.
Alphabet Inc. is not automatically a proper defendant merely because it is Waymo's corporate parent. Alphabet belongs in a claim only if discovery shows direct conduct, an agency relationship, or some other independent basis for holding the parent company liable — not as a default addition to every Waymo case.
PIP, Insurance, and What a Claim Actually Recovers
PIP coverage isn't limited to Waymo passengers. Florida remains a no-fault state, and a pedestrian or cyclist struck by a Waymo may also be entitled to Personal Injury Protection benefits — but which policy pays depends on the facts: whether the injured person owns their own vehicle and carries PIP, whether they qualify as a resident relative under someone else's policy, or whether, absent either, they look to the striking vehicle's own PIP coverage. Florida's PIP statute (§§ 627.736, 627.737) also requires that qualifying medical care be sought within 14 days of the accident, caps benefits at $2,500 unless a provider determines the injury is an emergency medical condition, and requires the injury to meet Florida's permanent-injury threshold before noneconomic (pain and suffering) damages become available at all.
The $1 million minimum applies only while the ADS is actively engaged on the network. Under § 627.749, Fla. Stat., a fully autonomous vehicle must carry at least $1 million in primary liability coverage — but only while the automated driving system is engaged and the vehicle is logged onto the on-demand network or engaged in a prearranged ride. Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage is required only "as provided by" § 627.727, Fla. Stat., under which UM/UIM coverage can be reduced or rejected outright through a valid written election. Whether that $1 million figure or full UM/UIM coverage actually applies to a given claim depends on obtaining the specific policy and any UM rejection form on file — it should not be treated as a guaranteed floor.
Recent NHTSA Recalls and Investigations Worth Tracking
Federal oversight of Waymo has been active and is directly relevant to any current claim:
Recall 25E084 (school bus violations). Waymo vehicles in multiple cities — including Atlanta and Austin — were cited for illegally passing stopped school buses. Waymo issued a voluntary software recall covering more than 3,000 vehicles; the company reported repairing affected vehicles by mid-November 2025, though at least one additional citation was reported after the fix was deployed.
Recall 26E026 (standing water). Covers vehicles that proceeded into standing/flood water; an interim remedy has been issued, with a final remedy still under development as of this writing.
Recall 26E035 (freeway construction zones). Covers roughly 3,900 vehicles that entered closed freeway construction zones; NHTSA and Waymo reported this remedied by June 29, 2026.
Investigation PE26001 (Santa Monica). NHTSA opened an active investigation after a Waymo vehicle struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica in January 2026. This investigation has not yet closed.
These are exactly the kind of fast-moving developments that can date a page like this within weeks — worth checking the NHTSA recall database directly before republishing, and worth setting up a standing watch on Waymo/Florida news given how quickly this area is moving.
A note on terminology: Waymo's "Remote Assistance" function should not be described as "teleoperation." Waymo states that Remote Assistance staff provide information or suggest paths to the ADS, but do not remotely drive the vehicle — the ADS can accept or reject that input. Florida's teleoperation statute (§ 319.145, Fla. Stat.) contemplates a different arrangement, where a remote human operator can perform or supervise the driving task directly. Describing Waymo's system as "teleoperated" without evidence that a specific incident involved that kind of direct remote control would overstate what's actually known.
Local Regulation — Preempted, But Not Entirely
§ 316.85(6), Fla. Stat., preempts Miami-Dade County and other local governments from imposing their own AV-specific taxes, fees, or for-hire-vehicle permit requirements, and from creating custom AV licensing rules. That preemption is not absolute: the statute carves out reasonable fees an airport or seaport may charge consistent with fees charged to similar service providers, and it does not eliminate generally applicable traffic laws, police enforcement, or ordinary roadway rules that apply to every vehicle regardless of who or what is driving it. "Any regulation has to come from the state" overstates the preemption — the accurate statement is that AV-specific regulation has to come from the state.
What to Do After a Waymo Accident
Call 911 rather than assuming the vehicle reported the collision. Don't rely on Waymo's systems to notify emergency responders.
Photograph everything: the vehicle, its license plate, any unit markings or QR code, the points of impact, relevant traffic controls, and the vehicle's final stopping position. Waymo has stated that its vehicles may continue moving to a safer stopping location after a collision, which can make the eventual resting position different from the point of impact.
Preserve your own digital trail: the ride receipt, route, ride ID, in-app notifications, any support-chat messages, and screenshots.
Seek medical care within 14 days if you want PIP benefits to apply to your treatment.
Report the incident through Waymo's own collision channel — the company provides a collision phone number, an online form, an insurance email address, and a QR code mounted on the vehicle door — but understand that filing a routine customer-service report is not a substitute for a formal legal evidence-preservation notice, which needs to go out separately and promptly.
What Evidence Needs to Be Preserved — Fast
Unlike an ordinary crash, there's no driver to interview and no "driver's statement" describing what happened. The evidence instead lives inside the vehicle's own systems, and none of it is required to be kept indefinitely:
All exterior and interior camera recordings
LiDAR, radar, localization, object-classification, and path-planning data
Speed, braking, steering, acceleration, and collision-detection data
The exact ADS hardware generation and software version running at the time
Map data, geofencing, weather restrictions, and operational-design-domain rules in effect
Remote Assistance requests, responses, response latency, and any post-collision communications
Maintenance, cleaning, sensor-calibration, and inspection records
The NHTSA Standing General Order crash submission, if one was required for this incident
A formal preservation letter should go out immediately — the same urgency that applies to ELD and telematics data after a commercial truck crash.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I still get PIP coverage if I'm hurt as a passenger in a Waymo? Generally yes, subject to the 14-day treatment window and the $2,500 cap absent an emergency medical condition described above.
What if I'm hit by a Waymo while walking or biking, not riding in one? You may still be entitled to PIP benefits, but the paying carrier depends on your own coverage situation — see the PIP section above. Liability for the incident itself follows the same set of potential defendants (owner, ADS designer, maintenance contractor, other negligent road users) discussed above.
Can I have a claim if a Waymo suddenly brakes but never collides with anything? Potentially, yes. A collision isn't always required — if the vehicle's operation caused a provable passenger injury (a hard stop causing a fall or impact within the vehicle, for example), that can support a claim on its own.
Does Waymo's overall safety record prevent an individual claim? No. Aggregate safety statistics don't determine whether a particular vehicle, software version, maintenance condition, or operational decision caused a specific injury in a specific incident.
Can Miami-Dade County pass its own rules for Waymo? Not AV-specific ones — § 316.85(6), Fla. Stat., preempts local AV-specific taxes, fees, and for-hire requirements, with narrow airport/seaport exceptions, but ordinary traffic and roadway laws still apply to these vehicles like any other.
How long do I have to file a claim? It depends on the theory. An ordinary negligence or wrongful death claim generally has a two-year statute of limitations under § 95.11, Fla. Stat., following the 2023 change (HB 837). A claim founded on the design, manufacture, distribution, or sale of personal property — a products liability theory — generally carries a four-year period under the same statute. A claim against an insurer under the policy itself can run on a different clock again. Which period applies depends on how the claim is framed, and that should be confirmed early rather than assumed.
Call Dan: (954) 923-6110
With 25+ years of experience — including time on the insurance-defense side, so he knows how these companies build their defenses — Dan Reinfeld personally handles every case; there's no call center. Free consultations, no fee unless he recovers for you, with flexible options by phone, Zoom, or a hospital or home visit, including evenings and weekends.
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