November 18, 2024 – SAN FRANCISCO – Cruise LLC, an autonomous vehicle company based in San 
Francisco, has agreed to resolve a criminal charge in federal court for providing a false record to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation of a crash involving one of Cruise’s autonomous vehicles. A criminal information filed today charges Cruise with the offense, which Cruise has agreed to resolve through a deferred prosecution agreement and payment of a $500,000 criminal fine.
“Federal laws and regulations are in place to protect public safety on our roads. Companies with self-driving cars that seek to share our roads and crosswalks must be fully truthful in their reports to their regulators,” said Martha Boersch, Chief of the Office of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division.
“Today’s deferred prosecution agreement holds Cruise, LLC and its employees accountable for their lack of candor in a federal regulatory compliance action,” said Cory LeGars, Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General (DOT-OIG), Western Region. “Together with our law enforcement and prosecutorial partners, we will engage our collective resources to pursue companies and individuals who intentionally circumvent administration of federal regulations.”
The criminal information alleges that Cruise falsified records in a federal investigation under the jurisdiction of NHTSA within the U.S. Department of Transportation. The criminal investigation and prosecution against Cruise is being resolved with a deferred prosecution agreement in which Cruise admits and accepts responsibility for the charge in the information.
According to the agreement, the crash occurred in San Francisco on Oct. 2, 2023, when a Cruise vehicle operating without a driver ran over a pedestrian who had been thrown into the autonomous vehicle’s path by a human-driven vehicle. The Cruise vehicle stopped after running over the pedestrian. However, because its detection system did not detect that a pedestrian was underneath it, the Cruise vehicle then attempted to pull over to the side of the road with the woman underneath it, dragging the woman over 20 feet. Federal regulations require Cruise to report incidents, including crashes involving Cruise autonomous vehicles, to NHTSA. Cruise subsequently filed a report with NHTSA describing the accident that omitted reference to the secondary movement and dragging.
In a videoconference with NHTSA the next morning, Cruise employees provided a verbal summary of the accident that did not include a description of the dragging. The Cruise employees attempted to show a video of the accident that depicted the dragging, but due to technical difficulties, the portion of the video that showed the dragging did not play. That afternoon Cruise submitted a 1-day-report, which specifically required “a written description of the pre-crash, crash, and post-crash details,” to NHTSA. Cruise’s narrative omitted the dragging. That omission rendered the report inaccurate and incomplete in light of NHTSA’s requirements. The same day, Cruise employees provided NHTSA a copy of the video that showed the dragging, but Cruise did not correct the accident report or the disclosure in a later report submitted 10 days after the accident.
Under the deferred prosecution agreement, Cruise is required to pay a $500,000 criminal fine, cooperate with government investigations, implement a Safety Compliance Program, and provide annual reports to the United States Attorney’s Office on implementation and remediation.
If Cruise fails to completely perform or fulfill its obligations under the agreement during the agreement’s three-year term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office can proceed with prosecution of the charged offense.
The government reached this resolution with Cruise based on a number of factors, including the nature and seriousness of the offense conduct; Cruise’s timely notification to the government of an internal investigation and offer of cooperation, after being notified that the government had opened an investigation; Cruise’s cooperation, which included (1) conducting a thorough internal investigation and making the findings of that investigation public; (2) proactively identifying certain issues and facts that would likely be of interest to the government; (3) making factual presentations to the government and sharing information that would not have been otherwise available to the government; (4) sharing certain privileged documents with the government pursuant to a limited waiver of privilege; (5) making available witnesses for interviews by the government; and (6) remedial measures, such as ensuring that employees identified as responsible for the conduct at issue are no longer employed by Cruise, and operation improvements made by Cruise as set forth in the deferred prosecution agreement.
The announcement was made by Martha Boersch, Chief of the Office of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division, Cory LeGars, Special Agent-in-Charge, DOT-OIG, Western Region, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Noah Stern and Lloyd Farnham are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Maryam Beros. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by DOT-OIG and the FBI.
Source: DOJ Release
