Cruise hit with $1.5 million fine for failing to report robotaxi crash involving pedestrian

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has ordered autonomous vehicle developer Cruise to pay a $1.5 million fine for failing to disclose complete details regarding a severe pedestrian accident in San Francisco last year.

During the October incident, a pedestrian who had been struck by a human-operated vehicle in a hit-and-run was subsequently run over and dragged twenty feet by a driverless Cruise taxi. Although the General Motors subsidiary submitted crash reports to federal authorities shortly after the event, it omitted any mention of the dragging. This omission led California transportation regulators to revoke the company's testing permits and triggered a federal safety probe.\n\nTo resolve the investigation, Cruise has signed a consent agreement with federal regulators that mandates stricter safety reporting and operational transparency moving forward. The company previously attributed the reporting failure to data transmission issues when sending video footage to authorities, as well as a failure by its staff to verbally communicate the dragging incident during follow-up meetings. Although Cruise continues to face ongoing scrutiny and active investigations from both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has recently taken preliminary steps to resume its testing program. It has deployed manual mapping and supervised test vehicles in several regions, including Arizona, Texas, and California.