US court upholds regional recalls

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has upheld policy guidelines allowing the use of "regional recalls", which are campaigns limited to a particular geographical area. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration issued a letter in 1998 that established some guidelines for automakers to conduct recalls on selected vehicles based upon an assessment of the local driving environment. Consumer advocacy groups such as Public Citizen issued a legal challenge to this, claiming that such policy constituted "de facto regulation", and violated the Motor Vehicle Safety Act by not informing all owners of a pending safety investigation.

Such a regional campaign raised the ire of Wisconsin's attorney general late last year, when GM elected to recall trucks in 14 selected states due to a brake corrosion problem, but left out America's Dairyland out of the fun.

[Source: AP via Yahoo!]