Tow Guardian wins Best New Safety award

A three-in-one caravan coupling designed to eliminate trailer sway and make hitching up easier, has won a major prize in the 2023 caravancampingsales Innovation Awards.

The clever, patent-pending Tow Guardian system picks up the Best New Safety trophy in the 2023 caravancampingsales Innovation Awards, which are designed to recognize and reward advancements in the areas of technology, design, quality and safety throughout the Australian RV industry.

Developed by South Australia based RED Automotive Technologies, Tow Guardian is still in prototype form but if it makes it into production it's set to transform caravan towing by eliminating the possibility of trailer sway; a leading cause of caravan towing accidents.

Not so much a hitch as a complete trailer towing system, the Tow Guardian prototype incorporates an integrated brake controller, a weight distribution system, and an automatic jockey wheel.

It's designed to deliver similar stability levels to a fifth-wheel set-up, with two pivoting links that place a ‘virtual pivot’ just over a metre forward of the hitching point, replacing a traditional tow ball or any other conventional hitch.

Its makers say it will also offer faster and easier hitching and unhitching.

"There will be some significant changes for the production version. It will be smaller and more compact," RED Automotive Technologies Managing Director Paul van de Loo told caravancampingsales in early-December.

"What an excellent product to address that most frightening and potentially fatal tendency of all caravans to sway. Hopefully the cost of what appears to be quite a complex unit won't be too high," Innovation Awards' judge Phil Lord said.

In second position after the judges' votes were tallied was the 12V Adventure Pump, which Innovation Awards' judge Rod Chapman described as "a simple, elegant, effective solution" to the problem of collecting water in remote locations.

"No more busting a gut to refill your caravan’s water tanks when travelling off-grid. This portable 12V pump system takes the effort out of capturing water in your jerries and then transferring it to your van’s tanks," he said.

Third place-getter in the 2023 Best New Safety category was the Spartan Hub, a 'wheely smart' solution developed by two Queenslanders.

"This type of sealed unit is not unusual in the automotive industry, so it was about time it became available for trailers and caravans," Phil Lord commented.

Other finalists in the 2023 Best New Safety category included the FullStop wheel clamp anti-theft devices, Wheel Sensei bearing temperature monitor, and the VanSafe free safety check program run by Caravanning Queensland.

Other category winners in the 2023 caravancampingsales Innovation Awards include the Zone Expedition (Best New RV), 1 Key Caravan (Best New Product/Accessory), and TerraGlide (Best New Technology).