General Motors' autonomous vehicle unit recalls cars for software update after dragging a pedestrian

General Motors' Cruise autonomous vehicle unit is recalling all 950 of its cars to update software after it dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October.

General Motors' Cruise autonomous vehicle unit is recalling all 950 of its cars to update software after it dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October.

The company said in documents posted by U.S. safety regulators on Wednesday that with the updated software, Cruise vehicles will remain stationary in similar cases in the future.

The Oct. 2 crash forced Cruise to suspend driverless operations nationwide after California regulators found that its cars posed a danger to public safety. The California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the license for Cruise, which was transporting passengers without human drivers throughout San Francisco.

In the crash, a human-driven vehicle hit a pedestrian, sending the person into the path of a Cruise autonomous vehicle. The Cruise initially stopped but then pulled to the right to get out of traffic, pulling the person about 20 feet (six metres) forward.

Cruise says in documents that it already has updated software in test vehicles that are being supervised by human safety drivers. The driverless fleet will get the new software before resuming operations, the company says.

Cruise has also tested a robotaxi service in Los Angeles, as well as cities like Phoenix and Austin, Texas.

Cruise said in a statement Wednesday that it did the recall even though it determined that a similar crash with a risk of serious injury could happen again every 10 million to 100 million miles without the update.