The fallout from an incident involving a Cruise autonomous test vehicle and a pedestrian continues, as a California administrative judge has ordered the company to explain why it should not be fined for “misleading” regulators.
The question follows an October 2 incident, in which a pedestrian was struck by a Nissan Sentra driven by a human. The person was pushed into a Cruise autonomous vehicle, which could not stop before hitting them a second time.
However, crucially, regulators say the company initially edited a video of the incident to stop them from seeing the robotaxi’s decision to then pull over, which dragged the pedestrian another 20 feet, at 7 mph (11 km/h). Although Cruise denied the claim, officials say it took the company more than a week to provide them with the full video.
Read: Cruise CEO Quits In Wake Of Safety-Related Self-Driving Shutdown
In a 13-page ruling seen by the Detroit Free Press, Judge Robert Mason asked the company to explain why it “should not be fined, penalized, and/or receive other regulatory sanctions for failing to provide complete information to the [California Public Utilities] Commission.”
The company now has until December 18 to submit a written response, and must appear in court on February 6. If it fails to explain why it doesn’t deserve a fine, it could have to pay between $500 to $100,000 per day for its response to regulators. Considering that the CPUC mentioned in its Friday ruling that Cruise took 15 days to provide a complete account of the accident, this could potentially result in a fine of up to $1.5 million.
A Cruise spokesperson said that the company is “committed to rebuilding trust with our regulators and will respond in a timely manner.” The company has also hired law firm Quinn Emanuel to examine its response to the incident.
GM said in a statement that it remains committed to Cruise, but last week, CEO Mary Barra told investors that it would be spending “substantially” less on the autonomous vehicle company in 2024, than it did in 2023. She added that the automaker is “very focused on righting the ship there.”
“I’m not going to rush either of them,” Barra said of the review that is ongoing at Cruise, per Autonews. “We want to be thorough in what we do and informed, because that will then dictate how we go forward from a resource perspective and, more importantly, from a technology perspective.”
Meanwhile, the pedestrian, whose identity has not been revealed, remains in hospital, in San Francisco. However, they are described as being in “good condition.”
