Calif. DMV says Cruise hid video of SF crash, halts driverless permits

LATEST, Oct. 24, 2:25 p.m. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has suspended Cruise’s permits to deploy driverless vehicles as commercial taxis in the state, or run any tests on public streets without backup drivers behind the wheel. Tuesday’s orders, obtained by SFGATE, blame the suspension on employees of the San Francisco-based firm hiding the full story behind a crash that reportedly left a pedestrian severely injured on Oct. 2 in San Francisco.

In that crash, which occurred around 9:30 p.m. near the intersection of 5th and Market streets, an unrelated car struck a pedestrian, knocking them into the path of a driverless Cruise car, according to the DMV. The autonomous vehicle braked hard, but still collided with and ran over the pedestrian before coming to a complete stop. Cruise representatives met with officials from both the DMV and California Highway Patrol to discuss the collision, according to the DMV. During the meeting, Cruise employees allegedly played footage from the car’s onboard cameras, which ended once the car came to a stop.

But DMV officials said they later learned there was more to the story, and requested additional footage from Cruise, which the company sent 10 days after the initial meeting. The extended footage showed that, after the initial stop, the car then resumed driving and attempted a “pullover maneuver,” traveling about 20 feet while the pedestrian was still caught under the vehicle, according to the DMV.

“Cruise failed to disclose that the AV executed a pullover manuever that increased the risk of, and may have caused, further injury to a pedestrian,” the DMV wrote in a report justifying the suspensions. “Cruise’s omission hinders the ability of the department to effectively and timely evaluate the safe operation of Cruise’s vehicles and puts the safety of the public at risk.”

In a statement shared with SFGATE, Cruise spokesperson Navideh Forghani said the firm shared the full video with the DMV “proactively” and “shortly after the incident.”

Oct. 24, 12:45 p.m. The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permits for deploying and testing driverless cars Tuesday, writing that the cars create an “unreasonable risk to public safety.” 

The San Francisco-based company, which is owned by General Motors, has been testing its fleet in the city for years and offering paid taxi-style driverless rides for months. But it will now be forced to pause its operations after a series of high-profile incidents that drew regulators’ attention, including several run-ins with emergency vehicles and one crash where a driverless car ran over a pedestrian who’d been hit by a separate human-operated vehicle.

It’s not clear how long the suspension will last. The DMV’s Office of Public Affairs told SFGATE that Cruise will need to prove how it is addressing  the “deficiencies that led to the suspensions” but did not elaborate on what evidence might suffice. The company must request hearings to reinstate both the deployment permit and the driverless testing permit.

Listing the reasons for the suspensions, the DMV cited sections of the state’s regulatory text for autonomous vehicles, indicating that the department believes Cruise’s vehicles are currently “not safe for the public’s operation” and that Cruise “misrepresented” information related to the safety of its vehicles.

“Public safety remains the California DMV’s top priority, and the department’s autonomous vehicle regulations provide a framework to facilitate the safe testing and deployment of this technology on California public roads,” the DMV said in the release. “When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits.”

Cruise spokesperson Navideh Forghani confirmed that the company would be pausing its driverless cars in San Francisco in a Tuesday statement to SFGATE. 

The suspensions come after the DMV ordered Cruise to cut its vehicle fleet in San Francisco in half in August, after one of the driverless cars was hit by a fire truck that was responding to an emergency, SFGATE reported. It appeared the autonomous vehicle did not yield to the fire truck’s emergency sirens. Federal regulators have also been closely watching the car company; just last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Cruise cars’ behavior around pedestrians, the Associated Press reported, after receiving reports that the cars encroach on people in crosswalks.

Forghani told SFGATE that the DMV is specifically reviewing a crash from Oct. 2 near Fifth and Market streets, in which a human driver struck a pedestrian, knocking them into the path of a Cruise car. The autonomous vehicle “braked aggressively,” Forghani said, but still rolled over the person, “pulling the pedestrian forward” as it came to a complete stop. The pedestrian was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital with “multiple life-threatening traumatic injuries,” Capt. Justin Schorr, a spokesperson with the San Francisco Fire Department, told SFGATE on Oct. 3.

“Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the AV’s response to this kind of extremely rare event,” Forghani said Tuesday.

Hear of anything happening at Cruise or another tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at [email protected] or on Signal at 628-204-5452.