"it"; Kyle Vogt, their CEO at the time, is the person that decided to do it.

They have to operate in California though, so I don't blame them.

This is a state that made me a criminal for putting the wrong air filter on my car (Clearly my bad for putting on the 49 State legal version that makes the tailpipe emissions cleaner).

In the context of this thread, it's worth pointing out that "trying to deceive regulators" is quite normal behavior for individual human drivers involved in car incidents, and iirc the Cruise collision itself also involved a human driver performing a hit-and-run who didn't afaict ever get prosecuted or come forward to police.

I believe you, but that really highlights how dangerous small regulatory overheads are. One - quite reasonable - frame on what you're saying is that there was no problem with Cruise except they failed to engage with the bureaucracy properly on some relatively minor points.

That sort of behaviour should be an aggravating factor if they're actually misbehaving. If they aren't, then it is poor policy to try and put them out of business over paperwork.