Evil is not a 100% settled matter. For example, some people believe that saving another person's life if you can is a moral obligation and to not do so would be an evil act. I gather from your refusal to even consider stealing something in order to save the planet you are in the other camp.
Theft or fraud would definitely be preferable to the loss of the planet. Utilitarianism aside, sometimes doing the wrong thing actually is the better thing to do. Anyone who helped slaves escape via the Underground Railroad or smuggled Jews out of Nazi Germany would not be considered evil for their actions, and those could easily be construed as theft (in a gross way) or fraud.
This reminds me of when I was in basic training. The drill sgts would give us new recruits a task that none of us knew how to do, purposefully without guidance, and then leave. One guy would try and start doing it, always the incorrect way, and everyone else would just copy that person.
The specific example is beside the point. There are any number of events that can happen outside of a driver's control, human or computer, that could cause this or a similar predicament, e.g. the truck could have just changed lanes abruptly without signaling