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Harm Ledger · verified · Engineering

Cruise robotaxi hits and drags a pedestrian in San Francisco

On 2 October 2023 a driverless Cruise vehicle struck a pedestrian already hit by a human-driven car, then pulled over and dragged her about 20 feet; California suspended Cruise’s driverless permit and NHTSA later fined incomplete crash reporting.

Tier 3 Major HarmMethodology 0.1
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Current score

−3.08

10 base · Major Harm (tier 3 of 5, 10 pts)
× 0.5500 attribution · Critical contribution
× 1.0000 evidence · Overwhelming validation or measured outcome
× 1.0000 realization · Realized outcome
× 0.7000 durability · Useful for many years
Event-level product before credit split: 3.85

Critical injury from documented AV post-crash behavior is major (tier 3). Shared attribution with the initial human collision (0.55). NHTSA/DMV record is conclusive. Realization is the injury. Lasting injury and regulatory shutdown. Follow-up ingest: added a follow-up source.

What happened

NHTSA and Cruise’s recall filing said the collision-detection stack misclassified the event so the car initiated a pullover instead of staying still. Cruise recalled 950 vehicles. The pedestrian was critically injured. Responsibility is shared with the human hit-and-run driver, but the dragging was the AV’s post-crash behavior. Update (2026-09-21): OpenAI Faces California Lawsuit From BC Over Tumbler Ridge School Attack - Unite.AI. OpenAI Faces California Lawsuit From BC Over Tumbler Ridge School Attack  Unite.AI

Model attribution

−3.08

Cruise autonomous driving system

Driverless stack that collided then executed a pullover while the pedestrian was under the vehicle.

The dragging maneuver was the ADS response; a human driver first propelled the pedestrian into its path.

Attribution 0.5500 · Credit share 80% · Cruise

Claims

  • After the initial collision, the Cruise AV pulled over and dragged the pedestrian approximately 20 feet.

    outcome · supported

Sources

primary sources

independent sources

Secondary domains: Medicine & Health

Revision history

  • 13 Sep 2026 · 0.00 → 3.08

    Initial adjudicated seed score under methodology 0.1.

  • 22 Sep 2026 · 3.08 → 3.08

    Ingest update: added a follow-up source.

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