Tow Guardian, a new towing system designed to eliminate trailer sway, picked up the Best New Safety trophy late last year in the Caravan Camping Sales Innovation Awards – and for good reason. Developed by RED Automotive Technologies in South Australia, Tow Guardian replaces the traditional tow ball system with a completely new system that incorporates an integrated brake controller, weight distribution system and an automatic jockey wheel.
The prototype looks to be on the large side, but RED Automotive Technologies Managing Director Paul van de Loo said, “There will be some significant changes for the production version. It will be smaller and more compact.”
Usually, when you hitch a trailer on a towbar, there is around a metre or so behind the tow vehicle’s rear axle, and this is where the instability comes from. The Tow Guardian system instead, has two pivoting links that place a ‘virtual pivot’ around a metre forward of the hitching point, and as a result, delivers similar stability levels to a fifth-wheeler.
Paul says it’s not just superior in terms of towing, the brake controller has its advantages too. “It feels like you don’t have a caravan on the back when you’re braking; it’s far more accurate than the accelerometer-based brake controllers everyone is using now.”
Tow Guardian is not yet in the production phase and will need to be installed onto the caravan chassis during production. You can register your interest and find more information at: www.redautotech.com/tow-guardian.
