Interesting article in the Sunday Mail (Adelaide) today about dodgey caravan manufacturers. Appartently anyone can set them selves up as a caravan builder. The problem is that a number of them are not manufacturing to accepted engineering design principles. Instances where peope have paid large amounts of money (high $90,000) to have a van built and when gone to have it registered - to have it rejected.
In other instances it would seem the caravan manufacturer is able to get them registered without having them independantly certified.
As one would get someone with some pretty good mechanical knowledge expereince to run the slide ruler over a car they're thinking of buying - the rule also holds good for caravans.
I'm not sure whether I would have all that much faith in the industry associations - as it would apear that it is self regulatory.