GM’s Cruise autonomous taxi division was in the news in 2023 for all the wrong reasons. The company’s vehicles were involved in multiple high-profile crashes, culminating with an accident in October last year that involved a pedestrian who was dragged for 20 feet after being hit by another vehicle. Cruise paused operations but has been back in business for a while now, though the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hasn’t forgotten about its challenges.
The NHTSA fined Cruise $500,000 for its reporting around the crash. Officials said Cruise did not disclose key details surrounding the crash, which started when a woman was hit by a non-Cruise vehicle before being dragged by the company’s robotaxi for around 20 feet. The fine is part of a three-year agreement made between Cruise and the government, which will also require the company to cooperate with investigations, deliver annual reports to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and implement a safety compliance program.
Martha Boersch, head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s criminal division in San Francisco, said, “Companies with self-driving cars that seek to share our roads and crosswalks must be fully truthful in their reports to their regulators.”
Cruise’s CEO and co-founder resigned in the wake of the accident last year, but the company’s current CEO said it would fully comply with the agreement moving forward, promising transparency and cooperation. Of course, recent reports suggest that President-elect Donald Trump is eying regulatory reforms for autonomous vehicles, which could relax some of the rules, which would boost Tesla’s robotaxi program but could also make Cruise’s life easier going forward.
[Images: Cruise, GM]
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Source: The Truth About Cars
