[ne8il]

You hear a lot from long-time woodworkers that this is unnecessary, as they are perfectly capable of using a table saw safely with just the riving knife/splitter and proper technique. Which is anecdotally true, but hard to accept with the actual data of 30k injuries a year. So it's not a question of _if_ there's a cost to society here, it's a question of _where_ we put the cost: up-front on prevention, or in response to injury in the healthcare system. Is the trade-off worth it to force all consumers to spend a few hundred dollars more for a job-site table-saw, if it means the insurance market won't have to bear several thousand for an injury? I'd say yes.

[AlotOfReading]

There's a second aspect to the "tradeoff" that's worth emphasizing: it's not an equal trade. A significant percentage of those injured never fully recover regardless of the insurance money spent. Even a 1:1 trade of prevention vs response dollars means we have tens of thousands fewer permanent injuries.

[akira2501]

> but hard to accept with the actual data of 30k injuries a year.

Lacerations are the most common form of injury. Counting "bulk injuries" is not a particularly useful way to improve "safety."

> _if_ there's a cost to society here

The question you really want to ask is "is the risk:reward ratio sensible?" People aren't using saws for entertainment, they are using to produce actual physical products, that presumptively have some utility value and should be considered in terms of their _benefit_ to society.

> it's a question of _where_ we put the cost

With the owner of the saw. If you don't want saw injuries, don't buy a saw, most people don't actually need one. I fail to see this as a social problem.

> if it means the insurance market won't have to bear several thousand for an injury?

Shouldn't owners of saws just pay more in premiums? Why should the "market" bear the costs? Isn't "underwriting" precisely designed to solve this exact issue?

> I'd say yes.

With a yearly injury rate of 1:10,000 across the entire population? I'd have to say, obviously not, you're far more likely to do harm than you are to improve outcomes.

[jiggawatts]

The junior apprentice didn’t buy the saw that took his fingers off. His disinterested, profit-seeking boss did.

A defining aspect of developed countries is that their governments don’t allow business owners to lock the factory doors. We used to. Now we don’t. Are you saying we should go back to the good old times when children worked in coal mines?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_boy

[pjdesno]

I'm a member of a local artisan's workshop, where a whole bunch of talented folks share shop space for woodworking, metalworking, and various other stuff. All the saws are SawStop - the difference in price just isn't worth it. When you look at the costs of a table saw installation - space, blades, dust collector, etc. - going with non-SawStop would only save a few percent on the total.

[nprateem]

If you look on YouTube, almost all US woodworking channels remove the riving knife and blade guard. That just encourages new woodworkers to do the same. They then demo rabbit blades which are illegal in the EU due to being so dangerous.

[dfc]

I would be surprised if you see a moderately popular woodworker on YouTube that has removed the riving knife. Are you assuming that no blade guard implies that the riving knife is also not present? Yes a lot of people remove the blade guard but they then insert the riving knife. If they would make the safety pawls slightly better I think more people might leave the blade guard on.

[avar]

"Rabbit" (dado) blades aren't illegal in the EU.