Driverless car company admits to lying about pedestrian crash, but escapes prosecution

(CN) — The autonomous car company Cruise agreed on Thursday to pay a criminal fine of $500,000 to resolve charges that it provided falsified records to federal investigators about a gruesome 2023 collision.

Under the deferred prosecution agreement, announced on Thursday, Cruise agreed to the fine, to cooperate with further investigations, and provide the U.S. Attorney’s office with annual reports.

Government officials cited Cruise’s timely internal investigation and offer of cooperation after the initial false report omitting information about a woman being dragged under one of Cruise’s cars as the reason for the company’s relatively light punishment.

“Cruise will comply with the requirements set forth in the agreement, as we continue to move forward under new leadership and with a firm commitment to transparency with our regulators,” said Cruise President Craig Glidden, in a written statement.

The crash happened in San Francisco, less than two months after the General Motors-owned Cruise and Waymo, owned by Google, were licensed to operate robotaxis and to charge fares in the city.

One of Cruise’s self-driving cars ran over a woman who had been thrown from a different car, being driven by a human. The Cruise vehicle then stopped, with the woman underneath it. Because its sensors could not detect the woman, the car began to drive slowly, at around 7 miles per hour, toward the curb, dragging the woman about 20 feet.

Federal regulations require autonomous vehicle companies to report such incidents to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Cruise did file a report, but omitted the part about the dragging. Cruise employees later described the crash to administration officials during a videoconference, again omitting all mention of the dragging.

“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,” a Department of Justice spokesperson said in a written press release.  “The same day, Cruise employees provided NHTSA a copy of the video that showed the dragging, but Cruise did not correct the accident report or the disclosure in a later report submitted 10 days after the accident.”

In September, Cruise agreed to pay a $1.5 million to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Its permits to operate autonomous vehicles were suspended in the weeks after the crash. But the company has recently resumed supervised driving in Phoenix and Dallas.

Despite such incidents, there are signs that autonomous vehicles are finally ready for widespread usage. On Tuesday, Waymo opened its robotaxi service to anyone in Los Angeles. The company says its fleet of self-driving taxis makes more than 150,000 trips each week, having driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles.

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