The state of California announced Tuesday that it is straight away suspending permits belonging to driverless taxi firm Cruise, which effectively halts the firm’s autonomous-driving operations throughout the suspension.
The California Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended each Cruise’s testing and deployment permits, which is able to keep the autonomous robotaxis parked and off the streets of San Francisco for an indefinite period.
Cruise is a subsidiary of General Motors and has focused heavily on an effort to provide a completely autonomous shuttle called Origin that has no steering wheel or manual controls.
“Public safety stays the California DMV’s top priority, and the department’s autonomous vehicle regulations provide a framework to facilitate the secure testing and deployment of this technology on California public roads,” the state’s DMV wrote. “When there may be an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits. There isn’t a set time for a suspension.”
In explaining the reasoning for its suspension decision, the agency wrote that based on the vehicle’s performance the DMV determined the manufacturer’s vehicles aren’t secure for public operation.
The DMV also said that the manufacturer misrepresented information related to the security of its autonomous technology in its vehicles.
It also indicated that there was an act or omission by the manufacturer or one in all its agents, employees, contractors, or designees which the DMV finds makes vehicle testing on public roads an unreasonable risk to the general public.
A spokesperson for Cruise told FOX Business that consequently of the California DMV’s announcement this morning “we will likely be pausing operations of our driverless AVs in San Francisco.”
Each the state of California and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched investigations into an early October incident during which a human driver hit a pedestrian crossing the road, who was then launched into the trail of a Cruise robotaxi in an adjoining lane and the vehicle wasn’t in a position to stop in time to avoid the pedestrian and ultimately got here to a stop on top of the pedestrian.
The pedestrian was freed by first responders and brought to a close-by trauma center.