SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit is recalling all 950 of its cars to update software after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October and a subsequent ban by California regulators.

The 2 October crash prompted Cruise to suspend driverless operations nationwide after California regulators found that its cars posed a danger to public safety. The state’s department of motor vehicles revoked the license for Cruise, which was transporting passengers without human drivers throughout San Francisco.

In the crash, another vehicle with a person behind the wheel struck a pedestrian, sending the person into the path of a Cruise autonomous vehicle. The Cruise initially stopped but still hit the person. But it then pulled to the right to get out of traffic, pulling the person about 20ft (six meters) forward. The pedestrian was pinned under one of the Cruise vehicle’s tires and was critically injured.

Cruise says that all its driverless vehicles will be taken off roads for a software update to keep them stationary should a similar incident occur in the future. The company is also adding a chief safety officer, hiring a law firm to review its response to the October crash, appointing a third-party engineering firm to find the technical cause, and adopting companywide safety and transparency pillars.

NHTSA opened an investigation on 16 October into four reports that Cruise vehicles may not exercise proper caution around pedestrians. Agency documents cited two injuries, including the 2 October crash. The complaints involved vehicles operating autonomously and “encroaching on pedestrians present in or entering roadways, including pedestrian crosswalks in the proximity of the intended travel path of the vehicles”, the agency said.

General Motors Co, which had ambitious goals for Cruise, recently paused production of the Origin, a fully autonomous van designed for Cruise to carry multiple passengers. The company is expected to resume production at a Detroit-area factory once Cruise resumes autonomous ride-hailing.