A Snapshot of Cruise Crash Reporting Transparency: July & August 2023
A comparison of California Cruise robotaxi crash reports between the California DMV database and the NHTSA SGO database reveals significant discrepancies in reporting. 28 crashes reported to NHTSA do not appear in the California DMV database. This includes six unreported injury crashes. Of special note is the Cruise crash with a fire truck that caused serious injury to an occupant of the Cruise robotaxi does not appear as a California DMV crash report.
Comparison Results:
36 crashes were identified across both databases for the date-of-crash months of July 2023 through August 2023. The comparison was performed on October 28, 2023, so there was adequate time for all such crashes to have been reported.
Each database was missing one or more crashes found in the other database:
28 crashes reported to NHTSA were not in the California database1 crash reported to California was not found in the NHTSA database
The California DMV database was in particular missing SIX (6) crash reports which indicated an injury had occurred or might have occurred.
NHTSA 30412-5982: Other car ran into Cruise; passenger of other vehicle transported by EMS for further evaluation. Possible injury (“unknown” injury status).NHTSA 30412-6144: Cruise crash with fire truck; serious injury reported to passengerNHTSA 30412-6145: Cruise reversing contacted cyclist; minor injury reported to cyclistNHTSA 30412-6167: Cruise rear-ended after braking; minor injury reported to other vehicle driverNHTSA 30412-6175: Cruise hit pedestrian crossing in front of it (said to be crossing against light); moderate injury to pedestrianNHTSA 30412-6270: Cruise hit from behind after stopping to yield to pedestrian in crosswalk; minor injury to passengers inside AV
Other notes:
CA DMV reports have the street names, yet Cruise redacts this same information from reports filed with NHTSA claiming it is “confidential business information.” It is difficult to understand how information publicly reported by California can be classified as “confidential.”The NHTSA database does not have the date of the crash, although the California database has that information.Crashes considered were for reported incident dates of July & August 2023, considering only uncrewed (no safety driver) operation.It is our understanding that Cruise is not required to report all crashes that occur during deployment to California DMV. So it is possible that these reporting inconsistencies are still in accordance with applicable regulations.
Review status:
This data has not been peer reviewed. Corrections/additions/clarifications are welcome to improve accuracy. The data analysis results are included below.
Data sources:
