Tesla's autonomous taxis are facing a new safety issue: will they slow down when children are near schools?

On Monday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that it has initiated a defect petition review regarding a complaint. The complaint alleges that the 2026 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y models exceeded the speed limit in school zones while their autonomous driving systems were activated.

According to the documents from this organization, an anonymous petitioner submitted three videos as supporting materials. The documents state that this review was initiated last Friday. NHTSA indicates that this complaint will be evaluated before a decision is made to approve or reject a formal investigation.

The documents of this organization do not list any reported accidents or casualties, and it is estimated that about 1,000 vehicles may have been affected.

Tesla did not immediately respond to the request for a comment from Business Insider.

As Tesla pushes to build Robotaxi into a larger business, regulatory scrutiny has also followed.

This electric vehicle manufacturer has expanded its autonomous driving services from Austin to other cities in Texas as well as Florida. In September, the company also added a steering-wheel-less Cybercab to its Austin fleet.

CEO Elon Musk is increasingly shifting Tesla's focus from traditional car sales to autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, and robotics businesses.

Previously, this autonomous driving deployment had already attracted the attention of federal regulatory agencies. Just a few hours after these vehicles began providing services in Austin, NHTSA launched an audit investigation regarding the self-certification of Cybercab.

The school area also caused trouble for the competitor's Robotaxi company.

Last year, NHTSA initiated a preliminary investigation after receiving reports that Waymo vehicles made stops near school buses in Austin and Atlanta. The Robotaxi company, a subsidiary of Google, conducted a voluntary recall in December.

In January of this year, a vehicle Waymo struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California. According to NHTSA, the child suffered “minor injuries”; Waymo stated in a statement on its website that the vehicle “braked sharply, reducing its speed from about 17 miles per hour to less than 6 miles per hour before the collision.”

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