By STUART DYE
Most people have experienced the eye-watering pain of cracking their shin on a car tow bar.
But thanks to the work of a Tauranga inventor those accidents should become a thing of the past.
After seven years in the thinking, Dave Swanepoel has created the Towbar Deflector.
The simple device
places a smooth-edged, shallow-angled, stainless steel plate either side of the tow bar.
Anyone walking into it slides along the steel rather than knocking the protruding bar. Mr Swanepoel, 70, first got the idea seven years ago after hearing about a young girl who ran into a tow bar and broke her leg.
The accident so upset her grandfather that he suffered a heart attack.
"It was so sad, and it seemed that there must be a simple and inexpensive way to stop this kind of thing," said Mr Swanepoel. "I eventually started work on inventing the Towbar Deflector three years ago."
It has been patented and manufactured, and has the backing of ACC, the Land Transport Safety Authority and OSH.
Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/motoring
