New Delhi, July 14: The road transport ministry has taken a cue from the US and asked auto manufacturers to consider installing black boxes, radio-tags and overload-sensors in trucks.

Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Authority of the US had issued instructions that all commercial vehicles be fitted with black boxes like in planes. These boxes, or event data recorders, provide a snapshot of events preceding a crash.

In a meeting yesterday, the C.P. Joshi-led ministry asked auto manufacturers, including Tata Motors, Maruti and Bajaj, to consider fitting IT-enabled gadgets to improve safety of vehicles, help track them and reduce congestion at toll plazas.

“The auto manufacturers have assured us that fitting a black box is technologically possible but a cost-benefit study needs to be carried out,” Joshi said.

In the US, black boxes for vehicles are programmed to get activated the minute air bags get inflated. “This will have to be indigenised for India. Also, unlike the US, our collisions are not just head on. We have rear-end collisions, side collisions and so on,” a senior official said.

The government is also planning to make it mandatory for new trucks to be fitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The plan is to make all toll plazas RFID-enabled in two years so that tax can be electronically deducted as a vehicle passes through.

“If the trucks are fitted with RFID tags, security agencies can easily identify any truck at any moment,” the official said.

The government also wants auto manufacturers to install overload sensors in new trucks. “The sensors should immediately disarm the electrical circuit if the truck is carrying more weight than it has been built for,” the official said.

Under Section 114 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, if a vehicle is found to be overloaded, the excess weight has to be off-loaded at the cost of the vehicle’s driver. This is in addition to a penalty and compounding fee that will be charged before the vehicle is allowed to proceed.

“In the long term, bringing changes at the manufacturing level is far cheaper and easier than physical enforcement. It has been seen that powers given to the agencies are misused too,” said A.K. Upadhyay, the road transport secretary.

There are no statistics on the number of accidents caused by overloading, but the government claims it is one of the biggest reasons.