By Monique Garcia | Transportation
Sec. Ray LaHood said Tuesday his agency is going through 70,000
documents from Toyota that show the company knew it had a “sticky pedal
problem” long before it was reported  to federal officials.

“It’s clearly a violation and it’s clearly an indication that they have
violated the law,” LaHood said. “We are absolutely not going to stand
for that kind of behavior for one second.”Because the agency is still
digging through the paperwork, LaHood said
he would not be surprised to find other violations by Toyota.

“We’re still going through the documents and it could be that there
will be other information that we will learn,” LaHood said. “This it
the first thing that we found, and it may not be the last thing.”

He repeated previous allegations that Toyota was “safety deaf” and has a bad buisness model.

LaHood also said he will work with Congress to increase fines for
safety violators, saying the maximum fine of $16 million is not enough
in this case.

“If I had my way they’d be much higher,” LaHood said.

“We’re not going to sleep until every one of these cars is safe,” LaHood said.