[Lukeas14]

I think there's a difference between tools used by industry/hobbyists and products used by the general public. People who buy table saws are either professionals or at least have enough of an interest in woodworking to know the risks and know they need to learn safety tips. As opposed to products like cars or toasters, used by the general public who usually have no interest in how they work.

At the end of the day, it's really not hard to prevent table saw injuries. Use a riving knife, don't twist the wood and you'll pretty much never get a kickback. If something does go wrong you won't get injured if you keep your body out of the way. So don't stand directly behind the saw and use a push stick (I love my GRR-Ripper) so your fingers are never close to the blade. I'd guess the majority of woodworking injuries are due to people who know these rules but break them out of laziness or rushing. Table saws also aren't the only risk in a workshop. You can injure yourself just as easily on any other type of saw, jointer, planer, etc. It doesn't make sense for the CPSC to only require SawStop tech on table saws and putting it on every other tool would put the price of woodworking out of reach for most hobbyists.

From a quick Google search, 93% of table saw injuries are to the users' hands. The only actual deaths I could find were suicides. Yea it sucks to lose a finger but I'd argue that it's not the worse thing in the world. Pretty much everyone could still do their jobs minus one finger.

The one exception I would make is high school woodshop classes. Based on most teenagers lack of judgement, I think it does make sense to mandate that these woodshops only use saws with this technology. I'd be surprised if most school insurance policies don't already require it.

[maxxxxx]

This makes no sense. We mandated airbags and safety belts in cars and we should mandate SawStop or similar in tools like this. To me that's what "advanced" societies do and I call it progress. The cost will also go down with higher volumes.

I used to work for a chainsaw manufacturer and we had devices on all saws without exception that would prevent injury in case of a kickback. Once this is part of all designs the cost is negligible.

[cmroanirgo]

My brother is a Joiner, and had laboriously educated me (usually by being shouted & screamed at) when I'm doing dumb things on his panel saw.

I asked him one day about saw stop and his comment was surprising.

1. Good workshop behaviour is always safe.

2. The blade is all but destroyed in stopping so quickly. (A small price to pay, really)

3. He cited places that used saw stops had the highest levels of work place accidents... Which increased after having them installed... I think he mentioned that yes, no fingers lost though.

So, i think this device is wonderful, but can have nearly equally dire consequences, because it seems to breed poor safety.

[maxxxxx]

I don't know how good SawStop is exactly but destroying a blade is probably better than losing a finger. Otherwise we could argue that airbags are bad because we need new steering wheels after.

[vinceguidry]

When I was in wood shop a million years ago they didn't have table saws and didn't even want us using the one band saw in the shop. We made all our cuts using jigsaws. You'd have to work really hard to seriously hurt yourself with one of those.

[nikofeyn]

> At the end of the day, it's really not hard to prevent table saw injuries. Use a riving knife, don't twist the wood and you'll pretty much never get a kickback.

isn't this just another way of saying "don't make mistakes"?

[Lukeas14]

If you're about to remove the riving knife, or making a cut that may twist the wood you should immediately ask yourself if there's a more appropriate tool to use or way to make the cut. If you continue anyways I'd see that as negligence as opposed to a mistake. (To expand on twisting the wood, the longest side of the piece should always be held against something while cutting. So on a rip cut it should be held against the fence. And on a cross or angled cut it should be held against either a crosscutting sled or miter gauge)

Not saying mistakes don't happen. I'm sure there are instances of people doing everything right and still getting injured. But as I explained I don't think it happens often enough and the injuries aren't serious enough to make the risk so unacceptable that we need to add $500 to the price of every new tablesaw.

[fian]

I generally agree with you.

Wood often has hidden stresses within its structure. An apparently straight length of wood can cup/bow/curl quite markedly when cut. So you can't always know if a particular rip cut will result in the wood binding between the fence and blade leading to kick back.

On the price difference point, I have a portable Dewalt table saw that cost about AUD$1100 with a stand. Saw Stop didn't have a portable version when I purchased. Now that they do have a portable version, it is about AUD$2000, roughly twice the price of similar models from other manufacturers (at least here in Australia). That's quite a price difference for hobbyists and home gamers who aren't deriving an income from the tool.

[hoov]

It's a little more complicated than that. Even with a riving knife, you can still get kickback if your blade isn't aligned properly -- and most cheaper saws need a tune-up before being used.