Federal auto safety regulators said today that Toyota Motor Corp. was legally required to stop selling the eight models it recalled last week. Toyota took the extraordinary step of halting the sale of the vehicles late Tuesday over issues of "sticky acceleration pedals" because it hasn't yet found a fix. Those eight models accounted for nearly 60 percent of its U.S. sales last year. Toyota had begun looking at the issue of sticky pedals in 2007.
The new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, David Strickland, said today Toyota's decision to halt sales "was an aggressive one and was the legally and morally correct thing to do."
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Chicago radio station WGN that the government asked Toyota to stop selling the vehicles.
LaHood said, "The reason Toyota decided to do the recall and to stop manufacturing was because we asked them to."
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