Cruise Enters Deferred Prosecution Agreement After Admitting to Falsifying Federal Accident Report
Cruise LLC, the autonomous driving subsidiary of General Motors, has admitted to submitting a false report to federal regulators and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The admission resolves a criminal investigation stemming from a severe incident in October 2023, where one of the company’s robotaxis struck and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco. As part of the settlement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Cruise agrees to pay a $500,000 criminal fine—the maximum statutory penalty allowed—and will be subject to a three-year period of intense cooperation and government monitoring.
The charges center on the company’s lack of transparency following the October 2 accident, in which a pedestrian was initially struck by a human-driven vehicle and thrown into the path of a Cruise autonomous vehicle. While the robotaxi initially came to a stop, it subsequently attempted a “pullover maneuver” to clear traffic, dragging the victim approximately 20 feet (6.1 meters) before coming to a final rest. According to the Department of Justice, Cruise omitted reference to this secondary movement in its initial report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Furthermore, the company failed to provide regulators with the complete video footage of the dragging incident during initial briefings, effectively concealing the most critical aspect of the malfunction.
Under the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department will refrain from prosecuting Cruise for three years, provided the company adheres to strict compliance measures and cooperates fully with all government investigations. This includes facing annual implementation reviews and implementing a revamped safety compliance program. Martha Boersch, the Chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, stated that federal laws require companies to be “upfront and honest” with regulators, noting that incomplete reporting prevents agencies from effectively safeguarding the public.
The legal resolution marks a significant milestone in the company’s efforts to overhaul its safety culture and leadership following the disastrous fallout from the 2023 incident. The crisis previously led to the suspension of Cruise’s operating permits in California, the grounding of its entire U.S. fleet, and the resignation of co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt. Craig Glidden, Cruise’s President and Chief Administrative Officer, acknowledged the agreement as a necessary step forward, asserting that the company is “fully committed” to transparency as it attempts to rebuild trust with both regulators and the public.
This settlement arrives as Cruise cautiously resumes operations, having recently deployed human-supervised vehicles in Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston to retrain its artificial intelligence systems. However, the strict oversight mandated by the DOJ ensures that the company’s return to fully driverless operations will occur under a microscope. The agreement serves as a stark warning to the broader autonomous vehicle industry that federal authorities will aggressively pursue entities that attempt to obfuscate safety data or mislead regulatory bodies during the testing of experimental technologies.
