Autonomous vehicle operator Cruise said Thursday that federal regulators are reviewing action related to a pedestrian collision that occurred Oct. 2 in San Francisco.
“We are fully cooperating with state and federal regulatory and enforcement agencies that have initiated investigations or investigations in connection with the incident, including the California DMV, California Public Utilities Commission, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,” said the company in a blog post.
The post also includes the results of a third-party report ordered from law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan following the crash, in which lawyers cited a “failure of leadership” within the company.
On October 2, a car hit a woman in San Francisco, throwing her into the path of a driverless Cruise vehicle. The autonomous vehicle then dragged him approximately 20 feet onto the pavement, causing serious injuries. The California Department of Motor Vehicles accused Cruise of leaving out the part of the video in which the woman was dragged during a meeting the morning after the incident. On Oct. 24, the agency suspended Cruise’s permit to operate self-driving vehicles in the state, citing “an unreasonable risk to public safety.” Cruise has since suspended operations nationwide as it tries to rebuild public trust.
The Quinn Emanuel report said Cruise played or attempted to play the entire video containing AV’s pullover maneuver. But it is stated that Cruise did not verbally point out this fact to regulators or government officials “despite video transmission issues that prevented or prevented regulators from viewing the jumper maneuver and pedestrian drift.”
“Quinn Emanuel attributes this to a failure of leadership within Cruise, inadequate and uncoordinated internal processes, errors of judgment, an ‘us versus them’ mentality with government officials, and a fundamental misunderstanding of regulatory requirements and expectations,” Cruise wrote.
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt and co-founder Dan Kan resigned in November. Cruise then fired nine key leaders, including COO Gil West and chief legal officer Jeffrey Bleich, after an initial review on December 13. In its internal message announcing the news, the company said “new leadership is required.”