A General Motors Cruise self driving car, often referred to as a robotaxi, drives in front of the Ferry Building on the Embarcedero, San Francisco, California, August 17, 2023. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO - The autonomous vehicle company Cruise has agreed to pay a fine for filing a false report about one of its driverless cars dragging a pedestrian following a crash last year in San Francisco, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday.
The deferred prosecution agreement includes a $500,000 criminal fine for the San Francisco-based company.
The crash occurred Oct. 2, 2023 in the area of Market and Fifth streets in San Francisco, where a hit-and-run driver struck a woman crossing the street against a red light, knocking her into the path of the Cruise vehicle.
The driverless Cruise vehicle stopped after running over the woman, but it didn't detect her under the car and attempted to pull over, dragging the woman over 20 feet, prosecutors said.
Cruise filed a report as required with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, describing the accident but leaving out a reference to the secondary movement and dragging the pedestrian. And in a videoconference with transportation officials the next morning, Cruise employees provided a summary of the accident that didn't include a description of the dragging, prosecutors said.
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"The Cruise employees attempted to show a video of the accident that depicted the dragging, but due to technical difficulties, the portion of the video that showed the dragging did not play," according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
That afternoon Cruise submitted a 1-day-report, which specifically required "a written description of the pre-crash, crash, and post-crash details," to NHTSA. However, Cruise's narrative omitted the dragging, which the prosecutors said rendered the report inaccurate and incomplete.
The same day, Cruise employees provided a copy of the video that showed the dragging to the transportation agency, but Cruise didn't correct the accident report or the disclosure in a report submitted 10 days after the accident.
"Federal laws and regulations are in place to protect public safety on our roads. Companies with self-driving cars that seek to share our roads and crosswalks must be fully truthful in their reports to their regulators," said Martha Boersch, Chief of the Office of the U.S. Attorney's Criminal Division.
Cruise failed to share footage of pedestrian being dragged, DMV says
The California DMV says it suspended Cruise's permits to operated driverless taxis in San Francisco because the company failed to share footage of one of its cars dragging a woman after a collision.