Citing public safety concerns about Cruise‘s robotaxi line operating in San Francisco, California DMV officials announced Tuesday that the agency had suspended permits for General Motors’ autonomous vehicle subsidiary.
Cruise had already been under investigation by federal transportation officials after two crashes involving pedestrians. In response to the Department of Motor Vehicles’ decision, Cruise immediately pulled its driverless vehicles from the road in California.
“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 agency said in a statement. “When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits.”
DMV officials cited violations of state regulations for the suspension, including safety issues based on the vehicles’ performance and safety information that the “manufacturer has misrepresented.” DMV officials did not respond to questions about what may have been misrepresented.
DMV officials said that there is no set time frame for a suspension, but that the agency provided Cruise with “the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits.” It wasn’t immediately clear what those steps would be.
The suspension does not affect Cruise’s permit for testing its driverless vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel, according to the DMV.
Cruise officials said in a statement that, after learning about the suspension, it would pause the operation of its driverless vehicles in San Francisco. Cruise also operates robotaxis in Austin, Texas; Houston; and Phoenix, according to its website. It wasn’t immediately clear if Cruise would change its operations in those cities.
“Ultimately, we develop and deploy autonomous vehicles in an effort to save lives,” said Navideh Forghani, a spokesperson for Cruise. She said the suspension came after the DMV reviewed a hit-and-run crash on Oct. 2 in San Francisco, in which a non-Cruise driver struck a pedestrian, pushing the pedestrian into the path of a Cruise robotaxi. The self-driving car stopped but still made contact with the pedestrian, according to a report from the . National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The other vehicle fled the scene. Cruise said it continues to cooperate with police on the case.
“The AV [autonomous vehicle] braked aggressively before impact and because it detected a collision, it attempted to pull over to avoid further safety issues,” Forghani said. “When the AV tried to pull over, it continued before coming to a final stop, pulling the pedestrian forward. Our thoughts continue to be with the victim as we hope for a rapid and complete recovery.
“Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the AV’s response to this kind of extremely rare event,” she said.