Cruise says it will suspend all driverless operations across the U.S. after the California DMV ordered it to remove its autonomous vehicles from its roads. The state’s decision followed accusations that the GM owned company had not disclosed all relevant information in an investigation into a recent accident involving a pedestrian.
The GM-owned driverless car company currently operates in Phoenix, Houston, Austin, Dallas, and Miami, though San Francisco was the city in which it had the largest presence prior to the California DMV’s decision.
“The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust,” said Cruise, per Reuters. “In that spirit, we have decided to proactively pause driverless operations across all of our fleets while we take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools.”
Read: California DMV Suspends Cruise Permits After Robotaxi Ran Over And Dragged Pedestrian
The company has experienced a number of recent setbacks, including a recent collision with a fire truck, after which it was ordered to cut its operating fleet by half. Then, reports emerged that a Cruise autonomous test vehicle had struck a pedestrian in San Francisco.
Cruise initially pointed out that the pedestrian had been pushed into its AV by another vehicle. However, the DMV accused the company of not sharing all video of the incident with it, including footage that showed that the pedestrian in the incident had been dragged for 20 feet, at speeds of up to seven miles per hour (11 km/h).
Cruise maintains that it showed the DMV all of the footage it had from the beginning, but that did not stop the regulator from revoking its autonomous vehicle testing permit earlier this week, and saying that its vehicles pose “an unreasonable risk to public safety.”
That may not be the end of Cruise’s troubles. Although it says that its decision to suspend operations across the country is unrelated to any new on-road accidents, it is being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which says it is asking questions about five new crash reports involving Cruise vehicles that were struck from behind as a result of possible phantom braking incidents.
Cruise says it welcomes all of NHTSA’s questions.
