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Kyle Vogt resignation —

After robotaxi dragged pedestrian 20 feet, cruise founder and ceo resigns, gm-owned cruise "failed to disclose" full video and key crash details, dmv said..

Jon Brodkin - Nov 20, 2023 6:07 pm UTC

The CEO of self-driving car firm Cruise resigned yesterday following an accident in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian 20 feet. California officials accused Cruise of withholding key information and video after the accident, and the company's self-driving operations are on hold while federal authorities investigate.

"Today I resigned from my position as CEO of Cruise," co-founder Kyle Vogt wrote in a post on twitter.com . "The startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities, with each ride inspiring people with a small taste of the future," he also wrote.

Cruise is owned by General Motors, which bought the company in 2016. Vogt expressed optimism about Cruise's future without him, saying the team is "executing on a solid, multi-year roadmap and an exciting product vision."

"As for what's next for me, I plan to spend time with my family and explore some new ideas. Thanks for the great ride!" Vogt wrote.

On Saturday, one day before resigning, Vogt reportedly apologized to staff in an email. "As CEO, I take responsibility for the situation Cruise is in today. There are no excuses, and there is no sugar coating what has happened. We need to double down on safety, transparency, and community engagement," he wrote in the email quoted by Reuters .

Robotaxi kept moving after hitting woman

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) last month suspended Cruise's permits for autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing. Cruise subsequently announced a "pause" of all of its driverless operations in the US, which includes San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Miami. Cruise said the pause affects about 70 vehicles.

The DMV action came three weeks after a Cruise vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco. A woman entered a crosswalk at nighttime and was hit by two cars, the second of which was the Cruise vehicle. First, a Nissan Sentra "tragically struck and propelled the pedestrian into the path of the AV," Cruise said in a description of the incident .

The Cruise vehicle then moved "rightward before braking aggressively, but still made contact with the pedestrian," the company said. "The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet."

The accident happened at 9:29 pm on October 2. The Nissan driver fled the scene, and Cruise said it was sharing information with authorities to help them track down the hit-and-run driver. The woman suffered severe injuries and was reportedly still in "serious condition" at San Francisco General Hospital in late October.

In an order of suspension that was published by Vice , the California DMV said that in a meeting on October 3, "Cruise failed to disclose that the AV executed a pullover maneuver that increased the risk of, and may have caused, further injury to a pedestrian. Cruise's omission hinders the ability of the department to effectively and timely evaluate the safe operation of Cruise's vehicles and puts the safety of the public at risk."

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on October 16 opened an investigation into Cruise vehicles after receiving reports of two pedestrian injuries, including the October 2 incident. The Cruise cars "may not have exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway," the agency said. Another Cruise robotaxi hit a fire truck in San Francisco in August.

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Driverless car startup Cruise's no good, terrible year

Cruise rolled out hundreds of its robotaxis in San Francisco this year. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

Cruise rolled out hundreds of its robotaxis in San Francisco this year.

A year ago, the future seemed bright for the driverless car startup Cruise. As 2022 wrapped up, CEO Kyle Vogt took to Twitter to post about the company's autonomous vehicles rolling onto the streets of San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix.

"Folks," he wrote , "we are entering the golden years of AV expansion."

Robotaxis, which give rides to any paying customer with no driver at the wheel, were one of the latest tech products to be fully unleashed to the public this year. Dozens of companies, including Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon's Zoox, have been competing to be king. Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, was one of the fastest growing of those startups.

GM had poured billions into Cruise as the company emphasized scaling up at an unprecedented pace.

"We're on a trajectory that most businesses dream of, which is exponential growth," Vogt said during a July call with investors. He boasted about the size of Cruise's driverless car fleet, adding that "you will see several times this scale within the next six months."

By August, California had given Cruise permission to run around 300 robotaxis throughout San Francisco. (Waymo deploys around 100). And the company had started testing in several more cities across the country, including Dallas, Miami, Nashville and Charlotte.

But then, in October, things took a disastrous turn.

California orders Cruise driverless cars off the roads because of safety concerns

On the night of October 2, one of Cruise's driverless cars struck a pedestrian in San Francisco leaving her critically injured and fighting for her life. Her identity has not been released.

A cascade of events followed that ended with Vogt resigning and GM announcing it was pulling hundreds of millions in funding. Cruise is now facing government investigations , fines that could total millions and an uncertain future.

"They were the bull in a china shop. They just kept charging ahead," says Missy Cummings, a George Mason University professor who runs the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center. "When we sat around and discussed who was going to have the worst accident in that crowd, everyone knew it was going to be Cruise."

Tension was building

Even before the October incident, tension over self-driving cars was simmering in San Francisco.

Both Cruise and Waymo say their driverless cars are safer than human drivers – they don't get drunk, text or fall asleep at the wheel. The companies say they've driven millions of driverless miles without any human fatalities and the roads are safer with their autonomous systems in charge.

But, as robotaxis became increasingly ubiquitous throughout San Francisco, residents complained about near collisions and blunders. Local reports showed footage of confused vehicles clogging a residential cul-de-sac , driving into wet cement at a construction site and regularly running red lights .

Armed with traffic cones, protesters are immobilizing driverless cars

An activist group called Safe Street Rebel has been cataloging the incidents , which now clock in at more than 500. The group figured out that if they put orange traffic cones on the hoods of driverless cars , they would render the vehicles immobile. So, they started going out at night to "cone" as many cars as possible as a form of protest.

"When you start having passive aggressive protests like people putting orange cones on your cars, this isn't going to come out your way," says Cummings.

Protesters demonstrate against driverless cars in front of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in San Francisco in August. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

Protesters demonstrate against driverless cars in front of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in San Francisco in August.

Cruise and Waymo also ran into problems with San Francisco's police and fire departments . At government hearings, the agencies testified that the driverless cars were a nuisance. They tallied nearly 75 incidents where self-driving cars got in the way of rescue operations , including driving through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, running over fire hoses and refusing to move for first responders.

"Our folks cannot be paying attention to an autonomous vehicle when we've got ladders to throw," San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said in an August hearing.

California allows robo-taxis to expand and emergency responders aren't happy

Despite public angst over autonomous vehicles, California state regulators voted to allow the companies to expand their robotaxi services in August. That prompted the city of San Francisco to file motions with the state demanding a halt to the expansion.

Seven days after the vote, a Cruise car collided with a fire truck, injuring a passenger.

A pedestrian incident and an alleged cover-up

After the fire truck collision, the California Department of Motor Vehicles told Cruise to reduce its fleet in half, to 150 cars, while it investigated the incident.

Then, just weeks later, the Cruise car hit the pedestrian. Based on police reports and initial video footage from Cruise, the woman was first struck by a hit-and-run human driver whose vehicle threw her into the path of the driverless car.

Cruise said its car "braked aggressively to minimize the impact." It provided some news outlets with video of the incident, which ended right after the driverless car hit the woman . Cruise also gave footage to the DMV.

Over the next few weeks, Cruise continued to expand – launching driverless robotaxi rides in Houston . Then, in a surprise announcement at the end of October, the DMV ordered Cruise to immediately stop all operations in California.

The DMV says Cruise withheld footage from the night of the incident.

The facts stated in the DMV's order of suspension for Cruise. California Department of Motor Vehicles hide caption

The new video footage showed the Cruise car striking the pedestrian, running her over, and then dragging her an additional 20 feet at 7 miles per hour as it pulls to the curb and stops on top of her.

Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon associate professor and autonomous vehicle safety expert, says most human drivers wouldn't respond this way. "Before you move your car, you're going to find out where the pedestrian is," Koopman says. "The last thing you want to do is be driving over them, but that's exactly what the Cruise vehicle did."

Cruise says it gave regulators the entire video immediately after the incident. But the DMV says it was only after requesting the footage that Cruise handed it over – 10 days later.

It quickly snowballed for Cruise after that. The company recalled and grounded all of its cars nationwide – nearly 1,000 vehicles. It initiated a third-party safety review of its robotaxis and hired an outside law firm to examine its response to the pedestrian incident. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also opened an investigation into Cruise .

Meanwhile, The Intercept reported that Cruise cars had difficulty detecting children , according to internal documents. And The New York Times reported that remote human workers had to intervene to control Cruise's driverless vehicles every 2.5 to five miles.

By mid-November, Vogt was gone. Nearly a dozen other executives stepped down and Cruise announced it was laying off nearly a quarter of its staff.

Ripple effect across the industry

Cruise will continue its work on driverless cars as a commercial product, says spokesperson Navideh Forghani. She added that the company's approach is "with safety as our north star." GM's spokesperson says it remains committed to Cruise "as they refocus on trust, accountability and transparency."

Waymo has avoided much of the public ire that built up over the summer. Its spokesperson told NPR that "safety is our mission and top priority" and that "we treat every event seriously by investigating it to understand what happened."

But Cruise's controversy still affects the self-driving industry overall, says Carnegie Mellon's Koopman.

"The whole industry, with one voice, has been promoting the same talking points as Cruise," Koopman says. "So, if one of them is discredited, it discredits the entire industry because they're all using the same playbook."

A lot of that is the claim of driverless cars being superhuman when it comes to safety, he says.

Both Cruise and Waymo have released studies saying their vehicles are involved in fewer crashes than human drivers. One Waymo study says it has an 85% reduction in injury-causing collisions and a Cruise study says it has a 74% reduction . Neither company has released the raw data of these reports.

Koopman says the safety narrative can unravel when people see the driverless cars on city streets making the same mistakes as human drivers. He says he'd like to see the companies focus on making sure the technology is actually safe.

"To be clear, human drivers will text, they'll be distracted. There's the saying, 'the lights are on, but nobody's home,'" Koopman says. "But it turns out, that happens to robotaxis too."

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A Cruise car hit a pedestrian. The company’s response could set back California’s new robotaxi industry

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On Oct. 2, a Cruise driverless robotaxi hit a woman in downtown San Francisco and pinned her under the car, sending her to the hospital with serious injuries.

On Tuesday, state authorities suspended Cruise’s operating permit, banning it from deploying driverless cars on public roads until safety concerns are resolved. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether to take action too.

The turn of events marks a new chapter in the evolution of driverless cars and trucks. Not only is the underlying technology of autonomous vehicles under question; so too are the ethics of Cruise management, centering on founder and Chief Executive Kyle Vogt.

In pulling the permit, the California Department of Motor Vehicles cited safety concerns but also alleged that Cruise — owned by General Motors — misled the agency about basic facts.

What Cruise did not say, and what the DMV revealed Tuesday, is that after sitting still for an unspecified period of time, the robotaxi began moving forward at about 7 mph, dragging the woman with it for 20 feet.

The combination of safety and trust issues probably will deepen public skepticism about the technology and cause regulators to reevaluate their level of confidence in Cruise, if not the industry as a whole. That’s according to Bryant Walker Smith, an expert in automated vehicle law at the University of South Carolina. If Cruise can’t be trusted to be straightforward about the facts surrounding a serious injury case, “naturally the next question is how can we trust anything else you’ve told us.”

Here’s what happened: A car with a human behind the wheel hit a woman who was crossing the street against a red light at the intersection of 5 th and Market Streets. The pedestrian slid over the hood and into the path of a Cruise robotaxi, with no human driver. She was pinned under the car, and was taken to a hospital.

Those were the facts that were publicized immediately after the incident. Cruise called the crash tragic but said that the robotaxi stopped as it was supposed to and that a human driver couldn’t have reacted any faster.

Cruise had shown a video of the incident to reporters but barred them from posting it publicly. (Because of that restriction, The Times turned down Cruise’s offer.) The video shown to reporters ended with the robotaxi sitting motionless. The video was edited and did not show the car start up and drag the woman 20 more feet.

The DMV said Cruise showed it the same abbreviated video, and only later did the agency see the full version. The two sides are fighting about that version of events. Cruise said it showed the DMV the full video from the start.

In any case, Smith said, “If Cruise did not show [reporters] the whole video or acknowledge that something else happened, that is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

He found Cruise’s withholding of the full clip “baffling,” because, he said, “of course that’s going to come out.”

San Francisco’s fire chief is fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks. And L.A. is next

As robotaxi companies plan to provide service in Los Angeles, San Francisco officials battle with state regulators over robotaxi safety.

June 22, 2023

Asked why the company did not show the pedestrian-dragging part of the video to reporters, Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow emailed this response: “We moved quickly to get information out to necessary parties, with our top priority being to ensure that all officials had access to the information they needed immediately to apprehend the criminal in this situation — the hit and run driver. Initial media reports stated that the Cruise vehicle initially struck the pedestrian and did not mention the hit-and-run driver that caused the incident. Additionally, first responders did not initially mention the hit-and-run driver. It was important to correct the record to show that the incident was initiated by a human-driven vehicle that fled the scene.”

Cruise and its competitor Waymo have been under fire for months for the tendency of their robotaxis to interfere with firefighters, emergency medical workers and police, to the point where the chief of the San Francisco Fire Department deemed them “not ready for prime time.”

At the time, the companies sought permission for a major expansion of their robotaxi services in San Francisco from the California Public Utilities Commission. Opponents asked the commission for a pause, recommending the emergency responder issue be resolved first. In August, the commission voted 3 to 1 to greenlight the expansion. One of the yes votes came from Commissioner John Reynolds, Cruise’s former corporate counsel, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

For Cruise, that plan for now has been dashed. After the vote, a Cruise vehicle crashed into a firetruck, and the company’s vehicles began to act in bizarre ways, clustering together to block pedestrian and vehicle traffic at busy intersections for no apparent reason. All that preceded the robot-drags-human incident and Cruise’s questionable response.

The repercussions could be huge, Smith said. “One possibility is that this feeds into the narrative of automated vehicles and the companies behind them are suffering and failing,” he said.

The other possibility is that “this becomes a moment of differentiation” separating the qualities of the various robotaxi companies in the eyes regulators and the general public.

Companies including Zoox, Motional and Waymo are taking a more deliberate and safety-conscious approach to their rollouts, he said. “Waymo, though not perfect, has been quite public and detailed about what safety means to them, in ways much better than Cruise.”

Editorial: The robotaxi revolution is here. L.A., other cities need to be able to regulate driverless cars

California should not blithely turn over public streets to Cruise, Waymo or other robotaxi companies to develop their autonomous vehicle businesses.

Aug. 20, 2023

Los Angeles is currently considering how to handle an expected influx of robotaxis in the near future. One issue: The state has given cities no authority to regulate the technology, a restriction that had been pushed by industry lobbyists, and backed by Newsom.

Vogt often talks about safety as Cruise’s top concern: “The culture of Cruise and the sincerity with which we treat our values and behaviors is much higher than I’ve ever had in my career,” he told an audience at the Disrupt conference in San Francisco in September.

But he also emphasized the need to move fast. “San Francisco is a billion-dollar ride hailing market,” he said. “The scale is going to be very rapid. We are going to build thousands or maybe even more [vehicles] next year…. The goal is to get to scale as quickly as we can in terms of the total number of AVs to make this business profitable and sustainable.”

For now, Cruise is not moving at all.

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In latest Cruise incident, video shows pedestrian struck by human-driven car, then run over by robotaxi

The San Francisco Police Department is investigating an October 2 incident that left a woman stuck underneath a Cruise robotaxi after being hit by a human-driven vehicle.

Video captured by Cruise and viewed by TechCrunch shows a robotaxi braking and then running over a pedestrian who is laying in the street after being struck by a human-driven car and launched in front of the autonomous vehicle. Cruise said t he driver of the vehicle who initially hit the pedestrian fled the scene. 

Cruise said in its account of the events that the robotaxi “braked aggressively” to minimize impact. Still, the pedestrian was run over and then stuck under the vehicle, according to police as well as video from local bystanders that show the person under the robotaxi.

TechCrunch viewed the video, which shows a Cruise vehicle stopped at a traffic light and then proceeding once it turned green. The cameras, which include a forward-facing, rear-facing and side-facing cameras, captures a human-driven vehicle in the left lane accelerating through the intersection. Moments later, the video shows a person, who has entered the street on the far left side, being hit by the human-driven car, then flying over the front hood, up onto the roof of the vehicle and down the right side before falling into the street. The pedestrian landed in the lane to the right of the human-driven vehicle, which is where the Cruise robotaxi was.

Police are still investigating the matter. A San Francisco Police Department spokesperson released a statement:

On 10/02/23 at approximately 9:31 pm officers responded to 5th and Market Streets regarding a vehicle collision involving a pedestrian. Officers arrived on scene and discovered an autonomous vehicle struck an adult pedestrian. Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene and transported the pedestrian to the hospital. The medical condition of the pedestrian is unknown at this time. The autonomous vehicle remained on scene and did not have an occupant at the time of the collision. The operator of the autonomous vehicle is cooperating with the investigation. We believe that another vehicle that was not an autonomous vehicle may have been initially involved in the collision, but the vehicle or driver were not present at the scene during our investigation. The SFPD Traffic Collision Investigations Unit is leading the investigation and is looking into the factors that lead to this collision. Anyone with information is asked to contact SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD.

Cruise was quick to weigh in on the incident, taking to social media site X to give its account.

“At approximately 9:30 pm on October 2, a human-driven vehicle struck a pedestrian while traveling in the lane immediately to the left of a Cruise AV,” the post said. “The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact. The driver of the other vehicle fled the scene, and at the request of the police the AV was kept in place. Our heartfelt concern and focus is the wellbeing of the person who was injured and we are actively working with police to help identify the responsible driver.”

The event is the latest in a string of crashes and other incidents such as blocking traffic and driving into wet cement that has plagued Cruise operations in San Francisco. Based on Cruise’s account it appears the company wasn’t at fault in the initial impact of the pedestrian. An investigation should help determine if the AV could have avoided the pedestrian at all.

But in a city already divided on robotaxis, whether Cruise is to blame might not matter. The incident comes at a critical time for Cruise, a company trying to scale robotaxi operations in San Francisco and begin testing and eventually charge for rides in more than a dozen U.S. cities .

Cruise and Waymo won approval in August from the California Public Utilities Commission to expand commercial operations in San Francisco. The CPUC, the agency that regulates ride-hailing operations including those involving robotaxis, approved Cruise and Waymo on August 10 for final permits that allow the companies to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, expand their fleets and charge for rides throughout the city.

Just days later, Cruise was involved in a crash with an emergency response vehicle, prompting the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which also regulates autonomous vehicles, to request Cruise reduce its fleet by 50% until it could complete an investigation.

• Autonomous Cars /

Cruise robotaxi collides with fire truck in San Francisco, leaving one injured

One week after california approved 24/7 paid robotaxi services in san francisco, a crash occurred between an autonomous cruise taxi and a city fire department truck late at night..

By Umar Shakir , a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.

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A Cruise robotaxi in San Francisco collided with a San Francisco Fire Department truck late Thursday, CNBC reports . A passenger riding inside the Cruise self-driving vehicle suffered “non-severe injuries” and was transported in an ambulance, according to an official company post on X (formally Twitter) this morning.

The company says its car, which was driverless at the time, “entered the intersection on a green light” before getting “struck by an emergency vehicle.” The post noted that the fire department vehicle was on its way to an emergency scene, suggesting the possibility that the Cruise vehicle did not yield to an emergency vehicle. The crash occurred around 10PM local time in the Tenderloin district of the city.

“We are investigating to better understand our AVs performance, and will be in touch with the City of San Francisco about the event,” Cruise’s post reads.

The incident comes less than a week after the California Public Utilities Commission voted to allow paid 24/7 robotaxi services in San Francisco, handing companies like Cruise and Alphabet-owned Waymo a huge victory.

City officials and residents have pleaded with the state to slow down the efforts , citing incidents in which self-driving cars have interfered with emergency vehicles. San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said the vehicles were “not ready for prime time.” The department at the time logged 66 incidents in which robotaxis interfered with fire trucks, starting in May 2022.

Since Cruise began testing in San Francisco, its vehicles have obstructed traffic on multiple occasions, including a situation where 10 autonomous vehicles halted traffic in a busy intersection during a music festival. And a cement mason’s worst nightmare occurred on Tuesday when a Cruise vehicle reportedly got stuck in wet concrete .

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How a robotaxi crash got Cruise’s self-driving cars pulled from Californian roads

The whiplash from approval to ban in just two months highlights the fragmented oversight governing the fledgling industry.

SAN FRANCISCO — Two months before Cruise’s driverless cars were yanked off the streets here for rolling over a pedestrian and dragging her about 20 feet, California regulators said they were confident about self-driving technology and gave the company permission to operate its robotaxi service in the city.

That approval was a pivotal moment for the self-driving car industry, as it expanded one of the biggest test cases in the world for the technology. But now, after the Oct. 2 crash that critically injured a jaywalking pedestrian — and Cruise’s initial misrepresentation over what actually happened that night — officials here are rethinking whether self-driving cars are ready for the road, and experts are encouraging other states to do the same.

On Thursday, just two days after the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s driverless permits, the company said it would suspend all driverless operations in the country to examine its process and earn back public trust.

“It was just a matter of time before an incident like this occurred,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said of the Oct. 2 crash. “And it was incredibly unfortunate that it happened, but it is not a complete surprise.”

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Immediately after California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted in August to allow General Motors’ Cruise and Google’s Waymo to charge for rides 24/7 around San Francisco, Chiu filed a motion to halt the commercial expansion, arguing the driverless cars had serious “public safety ramifications.”

Here in California, the whiplash from approval to ban in just two months highlights the fragmented oversight governing the self-driving car industry — a system that allowed Cruise to operate on San Francisco’s roads for more than three weeks following the October collision, despite dragging a human pinned underneath the vehicle.

California Assembly member Phil Ting (D), whose district includes San Francisco, said the DMV did “the right thing” by suspending the permits when it learned the full extent of the crash. While state legislators are grappling with how to control this rapidly developing industry, he said the DMV already has a rigorous permit approval process for autonomous vehicles. Cruise, for example, said it has received seven different permits over the past few years from the DMV to operate in California.

In California alone, more than 40 companies — ranging from young start-ups to tech giants — have permits to test their self-driving cars in San Francisco, according to the DMV. According to a Washington Post analysis of the data, the companies collectively report millions of miles on public roads every year, along with hundreds of mostly minor accidents.

“It’s hard being first, that’s the problem,” Ting said. “We are doing the best we can with what we know, while knowing that [autonomous vehicles] are part of our future. But how do we regulate it, not squash it?”

A skewed version of events

Just as the light turned green at a chaotic intersection in downtown San Francisco that October night, a pedestrian stepped into the road. A human-driven car rammed into the woman, causing her to roll onto the windshield for a few moments before she was flung into the path of the Cruise driverless car.

The human-driven car fled the scene, while the Cruise remained until officials arrived.

The morning after the collision, Cruise showed The Post and other media outlets footage captured by the driverless vehicle. In the video shared via Zoom, the driverless vehicle appeared to brake as soon as it made impact with the woman. Then the video ended.

When asked by The Post what happened next, Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow said the company had no additional footage to share and that the autonomous vehicle “braked aggressively to minimize the impact.” According to the DMV, representatives from the department were initially shown a similar video.

But that original video captured only part of the story.

Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that first responders who tended to the crash noted a trail of blood from the point of impact with the woman to where the vehicle ultimately stopped about 20 feet away.

The DMV said it met with Cruise the day after the crash but received additional footage 10 days later after “another government agency” told the DMV it existed. While the Cruise vehicle did initially brake as the company reported, the longer video showed the car began moving again toward the side of the road.

According to the DMV, the Cruise vehicle dragged the woman pinned underneath for about 20 feet, a move that may have worsened her injuries.

Cruise rebuts the DMV’s account, saying “shortly after the incident, our team proactively shared information” with state and federal investigators.

“We have stayed in close contact with regulators to answer their questions and assisted the police with identifying the vehicle of the hit and run driver,” Lindow said in a statement. “Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the [autonomous vehicle’s] response to this kind of extremely rare event.”

In its decision to revoke Cruise’s driverless permits Tuesday, the DMV said that Cruise vehicles are “not safe for the public’s operation” and determined the company misrepresented “information related to safety of the autonomous technology.”

Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also opened an investigation into Cruise this month over reports that its vehicles “may not have exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway.”

Ed Walters, who teaches autonomous vehicle law at Georgetown University, said that driverless technology is critical for a future with fewer road fatalities because robots don’t drive drunk or get distracted. But, he said, this accident shows that Cruise was not “quite ready for testing” in such a dense urban area.

“In hindsight you would have to say it was too early to roll these cars out in that environment,” he said. “This is a cautionary tale that we should be incremental. That we should do this step by step and do as much testing as we can with people in the cars to see when they are safe and whether they are safe.”

Incomplete data

Under the DMV’s autonomous vehicle program, companies are asked to publicly report collisions involving driverless cars only when they are in test mode . That means if an incident like the Oct. 2 crash occurs while the company is technically operating as a commercial service, the company does not have to publicly report it as an “Autonomous Vehicle Collision Report.”

As of mid-October, the DMV said it received 666 such reports. The Oct. 2 crash is not one of them.

“In commercial deployment, filing crash reports with the state is essentially voluntary,” Julia Friedlander, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s senior manager of automated driving policy, told city officials during a recent meeting. “It’s possible that some companies are making the decision to file reports sometimes and not necessarily file reports at other times.”

Cruise said it complies “with all required reporting from our regulators” and the company has “conversations with regulators about a number of reportable and non-reportable incidents on a regular basis.” Lindow, the spokeswoman, said the company reported the Oct. 2 crash to the DMV under reporting requirements that are not publicly available.

This is just one example of how difficult it is to get an accurate picture of the performance of driverless cars.

There are few clear federal regulations that set rules for how autonomous vehicles must function , and what standards they must meet before they are tested on public roads. At the federal level, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gathers mostly self-reported crash data from companies. In California, the DMV issues permits for testing and deployment, and the CPUC regulates commercial passenger service programs.

In San Francisco, city officials have no say over whether — or how — the cars are deployed on their streets.

That lack of control has unnerved city officials, especially as driverless cars created by Cruise and Waymo have become ubiquitous in San Francisco. The cars have caused major headaches in the city, as they have disrupted first responders on numerous occasions, from rolling into scenes cordoned off by caution tape to once colliding with a firetruck on its way to an emergency scene. City leaders attempted to halt the expansion by highlighting these incidents, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

In an interview with The Post last month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the criticism of driverless cars and the incidents involving his company were overblown.

“Anything that we do differently than humans is being sensationalized,” he said at the time.

Who’s responsible when there’s no driver?

While it was a human that hit the pedestrian and a Cruise vehicle that dragged her for 20 feet, Peskin, the Board of Supervisors president, said those on the CPUC who granted the company expanded permits — despite a flurry of issues reported with the technology — also bear some responsibility for the crash.

“Yes I blame Cruise,” he said. “But there was supposed to be a check and balance — and that check and balance completely failed, and it failed in a spectacular way.”

Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the CPUC, declined to make any of the commissioners available for an interview about this issue, saying “this matter is under deliberation.”

Moving forward, Chiu, the San Francisco city attorney, said officials are still working on their request to appeal Waymo’s permits to operate their robotaxi service in the city.

While the company has not caused as many high-profile incidents as Cruise lately, he said it is important for the state to “go back to the drawing board” until regulators can figure out clearer standards for the technology.

“The fact that we have multiple state agencies that appear to be working in different directions is challenging,” he said. “Who is ultimately responsible for ensuring safety on our streets?”

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Cruise robotaxi service hid severity of accident, California officials claim

General Motors service faces $1.5m penalty over allegations it misled regulators after a driverless car ran into a pedestrian

California regulators are alleging a San Francisco robotaxi service owned by General Motors covered up the severity of an accident involving one of its driverless cars, raising the specter they may add a fine to the recent suspension of its California license.

The potential penalty facing GM’s Cruise service could be around $1.5m, based on documents filed late last week by the California public utilities commission.

The notice orders Cruise to appear at a 6 February evidentiary hearing to determine whether the robotaxi service misled regulators about what happened after one of its driverless cars ran into a pedestrian who had already been struck by another vehicle driven by a human on the evening of 2 October in San Francisco.

The February hearing comes just six months after the commission authorized Cruise’s robotaxi service to begin charging passengers for around-the-clock rides throughout San Francisco, despite strident objections from city officials who warned the driverless cars malfunctioned.

Three weeks after Cruise’s 2 October accident, the California department of motor vehicles effectively shut down the robotaxi service by suspending its license to operate in the state.

The suspension was a major blow for Cruise and its corporate parent, GM, which absorbed huge losses during the development of the driverless service that was supposed to generate $1bn in revenue by 2025 as it expanded beyond San Francisco.

After losing nearly $6bn since the end of 2019, Cruise has shifted into reverse as it scrambles to control the fallout from the 2 October accident, which critically injured the pedestrian and led to the recent resignation of Kyle Vogt, the company’s CEO and co-founder.

Without directly addressing the potential fine, Mary Barra, CEO for GM, said on Monday that the October crash had helped the automaker learn more about the need for transparency and a better relationship with regulators.

“We’re very focused on righting the ship here because this is technology that can make the way we move from point A to point B safer,” Barra said.

Barra also pointed to the overhaul of Cruise’s management that included a reorganization of its government-relations and legal teams as signs of progress. “We think we can do things more effectively,” she said.

Cruise issued its own statement pledging to respond “in a timely manner” to the public utility commission’s concerns. The company has already hired an outside law firm to scrutinize its response to the 2 October accident.

The most serious questions about the incident concern Cruise’s handling of a video showing a robotaxi named “Panini” dragging the pedestrian 20ft (6 meters) at a speed of 7mph before coming to the stop.

In a 1 December filing recounting how Cruise handled disclosures about the accident, the commission asserted the company tried to conceal how its robotaxi reacted to the accident for more than two weeks.

The documents allege Cruise’s concealment started with a 3 October phone call to a regulatory analyst who was told the robotaxi had come to an immediate stop upon impact with the pedestrian without mentioning the vehicle actually drove another 20ft with the injured person still pinned down.

Cruise did not provide the video footage until 19 October, according to the regulatory filing. The cover-up spanned 15 days, according to the commission, exposing Cruise and GM to potential fines of $100,000 per day, or $1.5m.

• General Motors
• Self-driving cars
• Automotive industry

Most viewed

Woman dead after bus crashes into pedestrians at Honolulu cruise ship terminal

Five pedestrians were taken to the hospital, police said.

One woman has died and 10 others were injured after a shuttle bus crashed into the transportation area outside a Honolulu cruise terminal Friday, according to police.

The ship, Carnival Miracle, was on a 15-day journey, departing Long Beach, California, on April 6, according to Carnival Cruise Line. Nine of the people hit by the vehicle were cruise ship passengers.

"Sadly, one guest has died from her injuries. She was traveling with her husband, who was also injured and is expected to recover. Members of the Carnival Care Team are assisting the guests. Our thoughts are with the guests affected and their loved ones," Carnival Cruise Line said in a statement to ABC News.

MORE: Sydney stabbing: 6 dead, suspect killed in attack at major shopping mall

A 57-year-old man was dropping off customers at pier 2 when a bystander told him that his vehicle was moving forward. He then jumped into the drivers seat, trying to stop the vehicle, but he accidentally pressed the gas pedal instead of the brakes, colliding with two concrete barriers and eleven pedestrians, according to the Honolulu Police Department.

Five pedestrians were transported to the hospital -- one of whom was later pronounced dead and four others are in good condition. Six other pedestrians refused treatment on the scene, police said.

According to police, speed does not appear to be a contributing factor in the collision and it is unknown if drugs or alcohol were contributing factors.

The investigation is ongoing.

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Laid-off Cruise worker dishes on lingering impact of San Francisco crash on robotaxi company

• Copy link to this article

Cruise’s announcement Thursday that it would cut around a quarter of its staff came at the tail-end of months of chaos and what a laid-off employee characterized as an internal lack of transparency at the company that helped sow distrust internally.

The sacking of around 900 employees is the latest blow to the General Motors-owned company still reeling from the impact of an Oct. 2 incident in San Francisco, where a Cruise vehicle struck and dragged a woman nearly 20 feet after she was first hit by a human-driven vehicle.

Regulators have accused the General Motors-owned company of hiding video of the accident and are potentially levying $1.5 million in fines against Cruise. 

According to a regulatory filing with state employment officials, Cruise laid off a total of 535 employees across the state, including 371 positions located in San Francisco. The majority of these—228 jobs—were centered at the company’s SoMa headquarters at 333 Brannan St., with 120 positions cut at Cruise’s 1201 Bryant St. office and 23 jobs at its servicing center at 640 Cesar Chavez St.

A further 43 jobs were cut at the company’s Sunnyvale office and 18 jobs at its South San Francisco warehouse location. The remainder—98 positions—were remote employees based in California. 

These positions spanned departments including software development, marketing, recruiting, accounting and operations. 

Many rank-and-file employees were blindsided by much of the news that came out of the dragging incident and the reports about the company hiding the footage, according to the employee, who asked to remain anonymous because of fears of retaliation.

The scale of the mass layoffs also came as a surprise. The laid-off employee said there were only mentions of “small operational drawdowns” among temporary workers who were not getting their contracts renewed or staff to support operations in markets where Cruise has paused deployment. 

“The 24% or so was a surprise in terms of the numbers that we saw coming out,” the laid-off employee said. The employee said they realized they were among the positions affected when Slack access was shut off Thursday morning. 

After information shared during all-staff meetings by company leadership, including then-CEO Kyle Vogt, was leaked to the media, the employee said executives became much less transparent in company-wide meetings, breeding more mistrust in recent weeks.

General Motors, which announced it would be cutting spending on the self-driving car company by “hundreds of millions of dollars,” has been in the process of clearing out much of Cruise’s leadership. 

Vogt resigned as CEO last month, which was soon followed by the departure of his Cruise co-founder Daniel Kan. Earlier this week, Cruise announced that nine top executives were being fired amid a probe into the company’s safety practices, including its chief operating officer and chief legal officer.

“It felt like we were not being told the full story when folks left, especially when Dan and Kyle left,” the former employee said. 

Also among the cuts, according to Bloomberg , was Prashanthi Raman, Cruise’s vice president of government affairs. Raman was featured in a promotional video last year where she rode around San Francisco in a Cruise robotaxi alongside former Mayor Willie Brown.

Now leading the company is General Motors General Counsel Craig Glidden, who is serving as co-president with Cruise Chief Technology Officer Mo Elshenawy.

Elshenawy was listed as the author of the memo informing staff of the layoffs, which offered details about severance, benefits and career support. Laid-off Cruise employees are being offered at least 16 weeks of pay after their departures.

In the note, Elshenawy said the company is drastically scaling back its expansion plans, pausing work on its Origin shuttle and slowing down its road map to “focus on delivering the improvements to our tech and vehicle performance that will build trust in our AVs."

Previously, the company planned to expand to 12 new cities next year. That has been pared back to relaunching its robotaxis in a single, yet-to-be-determined market. 

Kevin Truong can be reached at [email protected]

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Months after a high profile accident, Cruise returns to Phoenix, but only for mapping

I f you're in the Phoenix area, you might start noticing Cruise vehicles again. Starting as early as today, Cruise plans to begin mapping the streets and gathering road information again, just six months after an accident halted the fleet. For now though, someone will be behind the wheel: Cruise is disengaging its cars' self-driving systems and letting humans drive. The company announced  its return to the roads today, but didn't specify when driverless operations would begin.

In October 2023, a vehicle from General Motors company Cruise hit and dragged a pedestrian who was crossing the street in San Francisco. When California lawmakers decided Cruise didn't behave honestly during the initial investigation, they suspended the company's license in the state. Cruise voluntarily announced a recall for the vehicle's software, shut down the rest of the company's operations, accepted the resignation of co-founder Kyle Vogt, dismissed nine other executives, and hired a new chief safety officer.

Also: For the first time, Waymo self-driving cars are delivering Uber Eats orders

Before the accident, Cruise had driverless cars in San Francisco, Houston, Phoenix, Austin, Dallas, and Miami.

Cruise wasn't cruising without issue though. The company was also under investigation, since December 2022 , for repeated hard braking, which resulted in a collision, and for instances where Cruise vehicles would become immobilized on the road.

In addition to Phoenix, Cruise has been in talks with more than 20 major metropolitan areas, Bloomberg reported today . Phoenix was the obvious place to start though, given the company had already run vehicles there, it's home to a number of Cruise employees, and city officials were open to the idea of the cars coming back.

"Looking to the next chapter," today's announcement reads, "our goal is to resume driverless operations. As we continue working to rebuild trust and determine the city where we will scale driverless, we also remain focused on continuing to improve our performance and overall safety approach."

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Watch CBS News

Boat capsizes off San Francisco coast; 4 boaters rescued

By Carlos Castaneda

Updated on: April 16, 2024 / 3:03 PM PDT / CBS San Francisco

Four people were being treated at a hospital after being rescued from a capsized boat off the San Francisco coastline over the weekend, police said.

The San Francisco Police Department's marine unit was called on April 14 to respond to the waters off Ocean Beach near Great Highway and Fulton Street at about 9:52 a.m.

The four boaters were in the water and the 25-to-30-foot vessel capsized about five miles from the Golden Gate Bridge while heading out to sea, police said.

A spokesman for the San Francisco Bar Pilots said the pilot vessel California first arrived at the scene of the capsized boat at about 9:43 a.m. to assess the situation as the SFPD marine unit and the U.S. Coast Guard were en route. Crew members of the California began the rescue operations and recovered two of the boaters; the SFPD rescue boat arrived shortly after to help recover the other boaters, the SFBP spokesman said. 

All four boaters were taken to a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.

The vessel was still adrift in the water a day later, according to police, and would be recovered later.

• Boat Accident
• San Francisco

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Crews rescue 4 from capsized boat off San Francisco coast

By nbc bay area staff • published april 14, 2024 • updated on april 14, 2024 at 2:08 pm.

Crews rescued four people from a capsized boat 3 miles off the coast of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach Sunday morning, according to firefighters. 

The San Francisco Fire Department added that all four are reportedly stable, and will be evaluated by medics.

It’s unclear exactly when the boat capsized, but the department first reported it on social media at 9:34 a.m.

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The department carried out rescue operations in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area and the California Highway patrol.

The coast guard is expected to have more information about the boat and what led to it capsizing.

UPDATE @USCGPACAREA and @SFPD marine unit rescued four subjects from this incident 3 miles off the coast of San Franciso Bay. The four subjects will be taken to waiting Marin County EMS units for evaluation. All are reported to be stable. The @USCGPACAREA will have further… https://t.co/IERBaX7TBQ pic.twitter.com/5tZs7s65bl — SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) April 14, 2024

This article tagged under:

• CruiseMapper
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• Russia Rivers Cruise Ports

Moscow (Russia)

Cruise port schedule, live map, terminals, news.

Region Russia Rivers

Local Time 2024-04-21 06:38

Moscow is a Volga River cruise port, Russia's capital and largest city (population over 12,2 million, metro 17 million). Moscow City covers a total area of approx 2610 km 2 (970 mi2). By population, the city is ranked the world's 14th largest. Moscow is one of the Russian Federation's all 3 federal cities - together with St Petersburg and Sevastopol .

Being Russian Federation's capital, Moscow is a major economic, political, scientific and cultural center, as well as Europe's biggest city.

According to Forbes 2013, Moscow has been ranked as the 9th most expensive city in the world by Mercer and has one of the largest urban economies, being ranked as an alpha global city according to Globalization and World Cities Research Network. It is also one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in the world according to MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index. Moscow is the northernmost and the coldest megacity and metropolis on the Earth. It's home to Ostankino Tower, the tallest free-standing European structure; the Federation Tower, the tallest European skyscraper; and the Moscow International Business Center. 

Moscow is situated on Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, which makes it the most populated inland city in the world. Moscow city is well known for architecture, particularly its historic buildings like Saint Basil's Cathedral. With over 40% of its territory covered by greenery, it's one of the greenest capitals and major cities in Europe and the world. Moscow is the seat of power of the Russian Government, being the site of Moscow Kremlin, a medieval city-fortress that is now the residence of the President of Russia. Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are among the several World Heritage Sites in the city. 

Moscow has 2 passenger terminals, North River Terminal (Rechnoy vokzal) and South River Terminal. The regular ship routes and cruises along Moskva and Oka rivers are used mostly for entertainment. North River Terminal (1937-built) is currently the main hub for long-range routes along the river. There are 3 freight ports that serve Moscow.

In late-July 2021 the city announced plans to incorporate a fleet (unspecified number) of fully electric passenger ferries into its public transportation network from summer 2022, the goal being to reduce the dependence on cars.

• The boats are designed with length ~22 m (72 ft), passenger capacity 42, modern amenities (Wi-Fi, USB charging points, tables for working commuters), spaces for storing scooters and bicycles.
• Moscow Transport confirmed that two routes (with max daily capacity ~16,000 passengers) have already been mapped out.
• Passengers will be able to pay via bank cards, the city’s Troika card (smart card for travel by any public transportation) or biometric payment cards. Those with monthly/yearly public transit tickets will use the boats at no extra cost.
• The new electric ferry service is up to 5 times faster (in comparison to other city public transports) and ~2 times faster than by car.

Moscow cruise terminal

Moscow's cruise terminal is called North River Terminal or River Station  ("Rechnoy Vokzal" / "речной вокзал").

The terminal was opened in 1937 and is one of 2 passenger terminals (the other being South River Terminal) of the city's river transport. North River Terminal is the main hub for long-range (including cruise) shipping routes. 

South River Terminal (above photo) was opened in 1985.

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City Sightseeing Moscow: Hop-On, Hop-Off Tour

Activity schedule, key highlights.

• Inclusions & Exclusions

24 hours and 48 hours (take your pick)

10am to 6pm

• Meeting Point Moscow Hop On, Hop Off Tour: You may hop on the bus at any stop. The voucher can be exchanged at any of the stops directly with the driver.

You may hop off the bus at any stop

• See all of Moscow from the UNESCO World Heritage Site Red Square to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
• The routes and stops take you to the most popular attractions of Moscow
• Choose between 24-hour or 48-hour hop-on, hop-off bus tour and explore Moscow at your own pace
• Hop on and off at any of the well-placed stops and see attractions of your choice
• Enjoy a complimentary walking tour and visit attractions like Kazan Cathedral, Red Square, Lenin’s Mausoleum & more!
• Audio commentary in multiple languages ensures that you don’t miss a thing!
• Both printed and smartphone vouchers accepted!

Our local partners answers all your concerns about travel plans during COVID-19, click the link below to know more.

Explore this bustling city comfortably aboard a hop-on hop-off bus with a 24-hour/48-hour hop-on, hop-off bus tour. With strategic routes and stops across the city, you have easy access to all the popular attractions of Moscow. Enjoy a FREE walking tour with your Moscow hop-on, hop-off ticket.

MAJOR ATTRACTIONS COVERED

• Alexander Garden at Mokhovaya St.
• Okhotny Ryad
• Big Moskvoretsky Bridge
• Arbatskaya Sq.
• Estrada Theatre
• Big Stone Bridge
• Lubyanka Square

About the Supplier: City Sightseeing is one of the leading tour operators offering hop-on, hop-off services across 100 locations worldwide. They have been providing quality services since 1998.

• 24-hour/48-hour hop-on, hop-off bus tour (if 'Bus tour only' option chosen)
• Commentary in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Farsi
• Free walking tour
• Entrances, unless specified

Useful downloads

Please note.

Voucher information: You can show your voucher on your smartphone (But if you’d rather print a copy – that’s fine too!)

Validity: 12 months from the date chosen at the time of booking

Wheelchair accessibility: Yes

Moscow is a functioning city and weather, traffic and events may occasionally cause disruption.

Timings and stops are subject to change.

The boat ticket is for single use only. Boat tour is available from May to October.

Customer Reviews

Oleksandra dokan.

Best way to see any new city . City is very clean and beautiful .

Fabulous. Easy to use and great informative audio guide. Great guide stopping off at the sights you want to see

The walk tour was great. Will recommend it to everyone

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