Very few people know what it's like to work in a profession where serious bodily harm or death are likely if you make one mistake in a lifetime. Even doctors, whose decisions and expertise can can save or kill their patients, don't generally die themselves if they foul up; they can bury their mistakes.
There are a lot of table saws in the United States. In most woodworking shops, it's the central piece of equipment. About 60,000 people are injured every year using table saws. 3,000 people a year suffer amputations using them. The injury related costs for table saw accidents is estimated at $2,000,000,000 yearly.
One table saw in one hundred is involved in an accident every year. Those are bad odds, for the operator and the person that pays the workman's compensation premiums.
So what do you do? The old playbook for dealing with the danger of a tool is well known:
Sue like crazy- No one gets their fingers back, but the lawyers get a new boat every year.
Require safety guards- The more elaborate the guards on a saw, the more likely the operator is to remove or disable them to speed up production, or simply see what they are doing. And any guard that will allow wood to be pushed through a blade will accomodate a finger too.
Require elaborate safety training- The problem here is, the greater the feeling of safety felt by the operator, the likelier it is he'll be lulled into ignoring the danger of the spinning blade. And the majority of injuries are suffered by professionals. Familiarity breeds contempt for danger.
Outlaw the tool- Impossible.
Or you could invent a tablesaw that refuses to cut your finger off.
Something tells me the fellow that invented the SawStop system is going to be buying that lawyer's boat I mentioned earlier, pictured below. Good for him.
