India, June 4 -- The Centre is working on new regulations that may soon bring back the "dog nose" design for trucks and heavy vehicles - a structural change that could improve road safety and logistics efficiency, Union road transport and highways secretary V Umashankar said on Tuesday.

The "dog nose" refers to a truck design in which the engine and hood protrude in front of the driver's cabin - a common sight until the late 1990s. That design gave way to flat-faced cabins when regulations started limiting the length of freight vehicles, which in turn began incentivised maximising cargo space. This, he said, inadvertently, may have introduced safety risks.

Umashankar now says that this seemingly small change could be crucial to improvin...