General Motors Co. (GM) has decided to settle a court case filed by Oscar Nilsson, who was involved in a minor accident with the company’s self-driving car in San Francisco while riding a motorcycle.
Nilsson filed a lawsuit against the automaker in a United States District Court earlier this year for negligence during a crash that occurred in December 2017.
The settlement was filed last week. Lawyers from both sides plan to finalize the settlement terms by the end of this month, according to the joint court filing.
Nilsson claimed that GM’s self-driving Cruise suddenly came into his lane and hit him, and he fell on the ground.
On the other hand, GM’s crash report said the car was moving in heavy traffic. It started merging in the left lane after seeing the space between two vehicles, but at the same time a vehicle slowed down, and the self-driving car stopped changing the lane and returned to middle lane. While the car was re-centering itself, Nilsson moved into the middle lane, glanced the side of the vehicle, trembled, and fell over, according to the report. GM argued that a police report also found the motorcyclist at fault for trying to overtake the Cruise.
The lawsuit said Nilsson suffered injuries to his shoulder and neck and needs a long therapy.
A spokeswoman at GM, Jordana Strosberg confirmed that the two parties have mutually decided to settle the suit but didn’t disclose specific details.
About 40 crashes have occurred in California since January 2017 that involve self-driving vehicles. 33 of those involved GM autonomous cars but California records show there was no fault of GM Cruise in those incidents.
The Detroit, Michigan-based company’s vehicles face more complicated driving tasks in urban areas as compared to suburbs regions.
