So what's it protecting? The tap?
Like you say, its the dragging back to the van that's the problem, or morelikely the dropping on the floor, or letting it go when you are one side of a fence and you have to walk the long way around to pick it up, or you leave it hooked up on a rose bush and forget it until the last moment then drop the bloody thing, all in all it gets treated like dirt.
The END of the thing needs to be rubberised or something, not bare metal.