Comment by TSiege
7 months ago
Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. So many people are certain it won't happen to them. Accidents happen, even to experts.
My dad had a table saw he'd been using for over a decade when he had an accident. Luckily they were able to stitch up the finger and he missed the bone, allowing the finger tip to regrow. But my family friend who's a professional carpenter isn't as lucky and is missing the tips of three fingers from a jointer.
These tools are dangerous and table saws cause upwards of 30k injures a year. Everyone's talking about how this will kill the industry. Are businesses not innovative around costs, new technology, and regulations? Seems like everything from cars to energy have all improved with regulatory pressure
And to all the people saying this will keep hobbyists away. Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off?
I think there are lots of people who would like to see this technology expanded. The issues going back more than a decade has been over the licensing of the patents. SawStop spent a lot of years aggressively suing over its IP and/or pushing for this legislation so that they could have regulatory capture. That's the problem, not the concept of safety. Maybe things have changed by now and we'll be able to see greater innovation in this space.
Sawstop already offered their key patent for free to get this technology adopted.
https://www.sawstop.com/news/sawstop-to-dedicate-key-u-s-pat...
They offered to relinquish one important patent, but they have a huge portfolio of patents covering blade breaks specifically applied to table saws. If you go look at the actual testimony instead of a summarized article, SawStop's representative very explicitly will not even discuss relinquishment of their other patents including their patent on "using electrical signals to detect contact with arbor mounted saws" which does not expire until 2037.
A large part of the testimony was companies such as Grizzly complaining that SawStop is unwilling to engage with them in good faith on licensing their technology. Given SawStop's history, I'm unfortunately inclined to believe them.
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On the date this comes into affect, either because they know they'll have to or for the PR (or both, the PR of coming out with it first). Not goodness of heart. As GP says they've prevented wider industry adoption by aggressively defending their patents in the past, despite not distributing their saws in Europe or expanding the range into other tools.
> Sawstop already offered their key patent for free
They didn't offer the patent, the offered to offer. It's no different to when billionaires pledge to donate billions, yet year after year they're still on the Forbes top 100.
This is so naive to believe them.
Came here for this.
It's a cost thing that the craptastic, corporate inversion power tool megacorps and Hazard Fraught's have resisted.
Btw, here's the video I got gargling for "!yt ave table saw", which compares a "Rigid" HF house brand saw to a SawStop saw:
https://youtu.be/RFsuemFKYjM
PS: https://hfpricetracker.com which emphasizes the demand-side obsession of budget-priced gear. Perhaps a bigger issue is working people should be paid more (income equality) so they aren't pushed to buy or rent crappier, more dangerous tools.
According to a recent Stumpy Nubs video, Saw Stop isn't the villain they've been made out to be (or at least has changed their tune substantially).
TLDR; They've offered not to defend their patent (or whatever the patent mumbo jumbo is) if the legislation goes through.
Stumpy Nubs on the subject: https://youtu.be/nxKkuDduYLk?si=c0GchB2hc3g0OtG4
The recent CPSC hearing where many of the revelations came out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyJGE2Vyid0&t=0s
Stumpy Nubs is a fine woodworker and a great YouTuber, but he, unlike the CEO of SawStop, is not a patent attorney. Over and over in his video he glosses over serious problems with the Saw Stop proposal and presumes goodwill on behalf of SawStop.
That goodwill is not warranted, nothing about Glass' or SawStop's behavior suggests that they're doing anything other than trying to force people to license their product by way of regulation. If they want to claim they are giving the license away, then do the whole patent portfolio (required for a functioning system), not just one of them.
They've already sued their competitors to keep similar products off of the market and there is zero reason for us, the regulators, or the competition to trust this organization.
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I think they sold out to a European firm a few years ago - I stopped paying attention to this space a few years ago, so like I said in my OP - could be the playing field has changed, and perhaps the current owner of this IP is in a different place.
> That's the problem, not the concept of safety.
Per the article, SawStop offered to 'open source' (as we'd say) the patent. Also, in TFA, end users objected to the regulation.
Weren’t the seatbelt and insulin famously given away? The people who own Sawstop IP are greedy people who have the blood, lost appendages, and deaths of a nearly countless number of people on their greedy shoulders. Absolutely shameless behavior.
I won’t sit here and say I have the solution; but this status quo is undeniably bad. Unchecked capitalism like this makes want me to vomit. Think of how many people would be living a better life if every table saw had this technology mandated by law for the past decade. Really think about it.
This is a bizarre take because if not for SawStop, many, many more people would have lost blood, appendages, and lives to conventional table saws. In fact, SawStop the company only exists because 20 years ago every table saw manufacturer refused to license the technology from the inventor. None of them wanted it at any price because it would increase the cost of their saws and reduce their profits.
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It's certainly an interesting problem to examine... my understanding was always that patents were designed to foster innovation by giving an inventor a way to make money on their IP so long as they gave the idea to the world. Somewhere along the way that got weaponized. So is the solution that we need to reform patents, or do we need some other way to both allow innovators to make money but in a way that doesn't exploit other parties trying to expand the footprint of a good idea? It's complicated.
Many who argue for unchecked market systems also dispute the validity of IP, because it is viewed as a destructive intervention from the state rather than a market system.
https://www.stephankinsella.com/own-ideas/
Most professional cabinetmaker shops are terribly mismanaged and incredibly behind the times. The industry is consolidating as the owners are aging out. Mostly they’re just straight up closing shop because they have no succession plan, terrible workplace habits, and mismanaged finances. The proposed regulation will “harm” this type of shop but any cabinetmaking business that _will_ exist in ~10 years already uses saws with these types of safety features (and equivalently “safe” practices when it comes to things like ventilating their finishing area.)
> Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today.
That is not a representative analogy. Imagine if in the 50s there was only one company that manufactured seatbelts and they owned every imaginable patent related to preventing car occupants from hitting surfaces in an accident (so another company couldn't for example invent the airbag because they'd block that too - see Bosch and a completely different implementation that Saw Stop sued out of the market).
Improved safety would be great, but legislation should never mandate a monopoly to a single manufacturer.
SawStop actually granted Bosch a license to their safety patents for Reaxx some time ago. Moreover, they said during the hearing that they'd offer permissive public licensing to their remaining patents should this rule be made effective.
They said, sure. Saw Stop has been such a toxic bad actor around their patents since forever, they don't get any benefit of doubt. I'm certain they'd just back down from that promise as soon as the law passes. How about they make all their patents public domain beforehand, to motivate passing the law (and I'd that point I'd be happy to support the law).
And imagine if this law passes and Saw Stop has monopoly on table saws. Sure, today you can buy one for $900 but nothing will prevent them from raising that to like $5000 when nobody else is allowed to build a table saw.
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> Moreover, they said during the hearing that they'd offer permissive public licensing to their remaining patents should this rule be made effective.
It sounds incredibly naive to think this will happen. If they haven't done it so far why would they do it when the government mandates that you have to be their customer?
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Indeed, and Bosch did not reenter the market with a Reaxx because they believe that people will not spend the extra money. For me this is a very strong argument for a mandate.
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Volvo released it's seatbelt patent to the public, as TTS has vowed to do so if the CPSC mandates AIM. The last 20 years is not the present.
>However, one key patent — the "840" patent — is not set to expire until 2033. To stave off potential competitors, it describes the AIM technology very broadly. In a surprise move at February's CPSC hearing, TTS Tooltechnic Systems North America CEO Matt Howard announced that the company would "dedicate the 840 patent to the public" if a new safety standard were adopted. Howard says that this would free up rivals to pursue their own safety devices or simply copy SawStop's. At the hearing, he challenged them "to get in the game."
Saw Stop initially tried to get other companies to license their patent. They all declined because they didn’t want the extra cost. It was only after Saw Stop started manufacturing their own saws and proved there was a market demand for people not cutting their fingers off that all the other manufacturers suddenly decided they wanted to implement it.
No other manufacturers have implemented it, have they?
Ok, take away seat belt analogy.
How about air bags. Those are a better one.
Air bags can cause harm to people who can't sit far enough away from the steering column [1], while there are some more advanced technology air bags that may mitigate that risk, the average airbag in the average car is not so advanced.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/air-bags-may-harm-tall-small-people-...
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Also the seat belt lock ruins the seat belt and if you ever have to slam on brakes you have replace both the seat belt and the lock.
There is actually a notice tag sewed into the seatbelt that is visible when too much force is applied. Most often the spool is no longer operative at that point as well.
If you get in an accident and the seat belt saves your life you do in fact have to replace (at least) the seat belt.
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The government is passing a law that says only company x make saws, due to various patents making it unrealistic to make your own design. They’re outlawing competition. Unless every relevant patent is opened up, this is extreme regulatory capture and is going to be a price gouging patent licensing circus after it passes
>due to various patents making it unrealistic to make your own design
Is it unrealistic, or are the companies simply not pursuing that market because it would harm their existing lines of product?
>Unless every relevant patent is opened up, this is extreme regulatory capture and is going to be a price gouging patent licensing circus after it passes
Personally, I'm fine with that.
As per the article, an entry-level SawStop retails for $899.
There's not excuse why this kind of tech isn't in every saw. The low cost of existing saws is a negative externality whose cost (cut off fingers) is borne by the society (insurance companies, healthcare, and government).
Right in the article, it says most patents are now expired and for the final key patent that expires in 2033, the owner -- SawStop's corp parent -- has offered to donate it to the public if this rule passes.
edit: if you believe different, please share. But per this article, patents do not seem to be a reason to avoid this tech. And the SawStop v1 was introduced in 2004, so it stands to reason we can now produce patent-free equivalent tech to the 2004 machine.
Here is a link to Gass' patent portfolio:
https://patents.justia.com/inventor/stephen-f-gass
Notice that the vast majority of his patents have to do with various aspects of "active injury mitigation technology", primarily related to saws, and that the most recent one was filed in August 2021. The only patent being offered up is the original--- Patent 9,724,840--- which basically only releases a very specific, early implementation of the safety system that has since undergone 20 years of additional patent activity.
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Yeah this needs to be met with invalidation of patents. If the government mandates something, it has to be possible without patent infringement.
Commonly there would be a requirement to license the patent, rather than striking it down for the crime of being indispensable.
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Jesus that would certainly kill any future innovation.
“Hey if your product is so good that absolutely everyone needs to have it we’ll make sure you get no financial reward for developing it”
They have offered to give away the key patent... I get the sense people aren't reading the story here.
Yeah this guy gets it.
Regardless of your stance on whether the government should regulate x or y, it's important to understand that the people driving this law do not care about you or your fingers. This is rent seeking; someone who makes safe saws wants to sell more of their saws, and they compete with people who sell less safe saws. They are using the legal system to benefit their own bottom line.
After the real goal is established, reasons like "think of the children" or "think of the fingers" can be fabricated.
>it's important to understand that the people driving this law do not care about you or your fingers
People and consumer advocates can feasibly have motives other than greed.
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But what do the goals matter? The only relevant question I can see is 'are the fingers worth the rent?'
To that point, a regulation requiring "if and only if" per unit licensing is available at (much) less than the worth of the fingers should be a no brainier.
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I don't think seatbelts are an honest comparison, nor are you representing the arguments of others fairly here. Seatbelts are a strap you add to a chair. They don't significantly affect the function of a car, don't add much to the maintenance overhead or up-front cost, they are easily removable/replaceable, etc. This is a much more invasive legislation.
I actually love sawstops. In fact I don't use table saws that don't include that functionality. But I would never, ever push for this kind of legislation. I'm not sure if you (or anyone commenting here) have ever used one of these saws personally, but the added expense and ongoing operating cost is not negligible. It's about $150 to fix it every time it triggers. People love to say 'cheaper than a trip to the hospital!' and while that's true it's also pithy and hand-wavy given how often these things trigger.
There are a ton of edge cases that can make these trigger (including mysterious triggers that seemingly have no cause), and there are whole classes of people who don't make enough to deal with that regularly but still operate saws safely for entire careers. Those are the people that are upset, not hypothetical hobbyists, who are the most likely to be able to afford the extra cost and be able to always operate in pristine conditions.
Powertools in a site setting need to operate in all kinds of conditions, and for a jobsite saw the money spent installing sensors and gadgets to meet regulations would be better spent on literally anything else for such a tool. People working in those settings are just going to turn this feature off and will strictly be hurt by this. (There's no way they can force these features to be always-on as that would prevent tons of materials from ever being able to be run through a table saw again.) To make it literally illegal to produce the right tool for site workers is an overreach coming from out of touch people.
Woodworking is an interesting space where people generally accept the risks they take and in return are more or less trusted to make that assessment by regulatory bodies at least in the US. A better comparison than seatbelts would be the european regulations around dado blades, which as I understand are fairly unpopular. Sawstops are great for HN types. That doesn't mean it should be illegal to produce sensorless saws.
FWIW, I supervised in one of the safest industrial environments in the US, and also one with incredibly robust workman comp. The 18-25 year olds I supervised typically just found ever stupider ways to get themselves hurt or accumulate improper- or over-use injuries... Arguably we would just fire them before they got us in trouble, which we didn't, but neither do people in much riskier settings I've heard from ("get these stupid safety railings uninstalled once the inspector is gone, they just waste time and get in the way").
My suspicion is that the better analogy for these things is airbags rather than seatbelts. Because people don't use seatbelts (guards), install something expensive that can't be easily defeated, airbags (sawstops), which are touchy and known to brick the car (saw). Do sawstops, when not engaging, inhibit the function of the saw as badly as airbags inhibit visibility around A pillars?
SawStop saws work like any other table saw while you're cutting. The only difference is that you won't cut your finger off, though you are still vulnerable to kickback which is also dangerous. When I swap my regular 10" blade for an 8" dado stack I have to change the brake cartridge which only takes an additional minute. I don't change blades often so it's not a big deal. I've had my SawStop contractor saw for years and have never triggered the brake. On the other hand, blade guards, which are clear plastic things that go over the saw blade, do make using the saw more difficult imo. Lots of saws come with them now but basically no one, myself included, uses them as they obstruct what you're doing and are incompatible with certain types of cuts. I feel safe with a riving knife installed and using push blocks like the Grrr-ripper 3D to keep my hands far away from the blade at all times.
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I am against seatbelt laws, so you got me there.
I grew up as a proud resident of New Hampshire which has no such law on the books despite being one of the safest states to drive in the USA.
Motorcycles are legal so why shouldn’t driving alone without a seatbelt? Perfect example of government overreach as cars get loaded with nanny state technology. I subscribe to the philosophy of personal responsibility, something that seems to have been lost in the modern litigious, it’s everyone-else’s-fault culture of the 21st century.
>I grew up as a proud resident of New Hampshire which has no such law on the books despite being one of the safest states to drive in the USA.
Last time I checked, you couldn't legally sell a car in New Hampshire which did not have seatbelts.
You're comparing apples to cardboard boxes here.
>Motorcycles are legal so why shouldn’t driving alone without a seatbelt?
Irrelevant. The question you need to ask for a fair comparison is:
>Motorcycles are legal so why shouldn’t SELLING A CAR without a seatbelt?
The answer is: because these are different vehicles with different use cases (and adoption levels) that require different kinds of licenses to operate and have different kind of negative externalities.
Same reason motorcycles aren't required to have airbags.
Well written. I don't know why responsibility is so scary.
I've never used a table saw but I rock climb regularly which has plenty of risk. Are table saw accidents purely due to your own actions? Or is it like a motorbike where there are factors out of your control and someone could crash into you.
If losing your fingers on a table saw is 100% due to your own actions and there are no externalities, I would call that negligence not accident.
>Well written. I don't know why responsibility is so scary.
Sure! I'm withyou!
People who buy table saws with a failsafe mechanism should not be fined for not using the failsafe or disabling it.
...selling the table saw without that mechanism should be, however, banned - just like cars without seatbelts or airbags aren't legal to sell in New Hampshire (or any other US state).
I agree. I also wear a seatbelt and do not ride a motorcycle, but I think people should be allowed to take risks with their own life if they want to. The next natural step from this legislation is government mandated diets and exercise regimens to combat the obesity epidemic — and the resulting mortality — in the United States.
I disagree. If I'm going to be forced to collectively absorb risk, then I have a right to decide what risks people can take. The main issue is that it's not just the risk of death like you're suggesting, they usually just get severely injured and it's a drain on public health infrastructure, my insurance costs, and everyone else gets shafted when their serious injury gets moved to the front of the line. I've only been to the urgent care once, but a particularly bad car crash made us wait several hours. I've had appointments delayed because of risks other people take with their own life.
We're too closely connected in modern society to just let people exclusively decide what risks they want to take, because their risks are also our risks. I wish our collective wellbeing wasn't tied to the guy who wants to drive without a seatbelt, but that's the world right now.
The government has banned things like trans fats, and I am fine with that.
In the jargon of philosophy this a friction point between Deontology (rules-based ethics) and Consequentialism (outcome-based ethics).
Deontologically there is a strong case against seatbelt laws, but the consequentialist perspective is rather compelling.
I’m generally a deontologist but find myself supporting the seatbelt law. It’s just such a small price to pay when stacked up against the consequences. I guess that means I’m not really a deontologist.
Personal responsibility is a hard sell in a world where human beings are not absolutely sovereign agents. Regardless, the law isn't stopping you from driving without a seatbelt. I find it odd that you have such a visceral response to a class of laws that is violated quite regularly.
Mischaracterizing the issue, which is people handing over (or having taken from them) responsibility, to the state, for something they should be taking responsibility for.
No chance your father or your joiner friend hadn't seen those ads of the saws which automatically stop on contact. But they chose not to buy one, because they decided they didn't need one. They had that choice. Or if before those existed, to use a hand saw.
Regulation is nothing more than saying "we're superior to you in making choices for you, so we'll do so". And it's made not by efficient innovative geniuses, but by the same people who run the DMV. And it's not imposed on children by parents, it's on grown adults by other grown adults with no legal accountability. And it ossifies technology by locking in certain measures which will quickly drift out of date. And, as we've seen with the FDA and Opioids, it gives a get out of jail free card to wrongdoers who game the rules, because they can point to their compliance and say "so look, we followed the rules, we shouldn't be liable".
It's just unbelievable people think regulation is in any way a good thing.
> which is people handing over (or having taken from them) responsibility, to the state, for something they should be taking responsibility for.
> It's just unbelievable people think regulation is in any way a good thing.
In general, there are many cases that most people cannot really take responsibility for. For example, if you hit a person with a car that can mean they’ll lose their income and need specialized care for decades. Such costs can run in the millions.
Now, you can argue people should take insurance against that risk. Problem is: some people won’t, and victims won’t be compensated,. If, then, you think the state should take on those costs, doesn’t the state have a say in what kinds of cars you can drive, for example that they have various safety features?
Also, this doesn’t only apply to cases where you injury others. If people get into an accident that leaves them with health costs they can’t afford to pay, we expect society to, at least partly pay up.
I think that argument applies here, too. Saw accidents can and do make lots of persons lose health and future income. In many cases, it’s the state that will have to pay up to cover that.
>but by the same people who run the DMV
I wish people would stop digging on the DMV. I have had multiple positive experiences with the DMV
> It's just unbelievable people think regulation is in any way a good thing.
I dunno man, I kinda like when there’s some sort of enforcement making sure there’s not toxic waste in my food beyond hoping I find out later and a remedy even exists to make me whole. But you do you, anarchy’s worked every other time it’s been tried right?
Anarchy isn't the only solution, but it makes a great knee-jerk reaction when trust fails. Probably the more valued (ie, safety, food, etc) the more the radical the reaction, I would guess.
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Ah yes a reply that is in no way doing any mischaracterizing itself. Great job!
When Volvo created the three-point safety belt (still in use today), they patented their invention. And then, recognizing the importance of this great improvement in safety, they absolutely gave it away for free.
When SawStop created a meat-detecting brake for table saws, they patented their invention. And then, they refused to give it away, sued the begeezus out of anyone who tried to emulate their patented inventions, and eventually paid lip-service to the concept by offering to license one aspect of it for free.
Can you spot the difference?
> Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off?
They are able, and they’re choosing not to. So SawStop is wisely spending marketing money on lobbying. If people don’t want to buy your product, nothing better than forcing them to.
> Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. So many people are certain it won't happen to them.
Please don't mix up "being against something" and "being against legislation that forces people into something". You can support the thing, do the thing yourself, advice all of your friends and family to do the thing, and still believe that people should have the freedom not to do the thing, even if you think this decision would be extremely stupid.
While I can agree that tablesaws are quite dangerous, I just don't understand how we get from: "tablesaws are dangerous" to "the government should regulate tablesaws." There are safer saws out there. Sawstop. Buy one. No governmental intervention needed.
I started taking a beginner woodworking class which actually had a bit of a waitlist to it. After the first day (all safety), I decided it wasn't worth it for just a minor hobby. Improved safety gear may have changed my mind.
I would recommend learning only one new tool at a time, rather than a suite of tools. It will be less onerous and scary learning the safety practices, and you will be far less likely to slip up. (Plus, it's more affordable to only buy a new tool as you need it.)
Also, some tools are a whole lot safer than others. Tools that carry a risk of flinging your project (such as table saws and lathes) are risky, but a lot of other tools (such as jig saws and tracks saws) are very unlikely to cause serious injury.
And, of course, you can do without power tools altogether. People have used hand tools exclusively for the vast majority of the history of woodworking, and many people today still primarily use hand tools because they are more precise, safer, and often easier to use (albeit slower).
Maybe a little safer, but you can do plenty of damage with hand tools. I haven't had any serious injuries with power tools or hand tools (knock on wood), but I have knicked myself pretty good with a chisel.
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I would recommend getting started with hand (non-power) tools. You can still make amazing things (see Paul Sellers) at a much lower risk profile.
I am a hobbyist carpenter and woodworker. My current project is probably the last one I will ever do without a table saw with these kinds of safety features. I have already changed over to using other tools like track saws and pull saws as much as I can for safety, but it is still hard to replace a well-calibrated table saw for certain tasks. My table saw is the only power tool I have that truly frightens me. Router tables and jointers can cause some nasty injuries as well, and I treat them with much respect, but total digit and limb loss is rarer with them.
The patent situation and much higher price are unfortunate, but it’s still a cost I am willing to bear. It’s cheap insurance compared to an ER visit and extended amounts of time spent feeling pain.
A seatbelt is a small fraction of the total cost of a car. I wouldn't be surprised if a table saw with this feature is 10x the cost of one without it or more. It adds a ton of complexity to a fairly simple tool.
At scale the cost will come down. The actual tech is remarkably simple (which is a compliment to the design and engineering). The saw blade is wired up in such a way that it becomes a capactive touch sensor. When tripped a sacrifical brake is blasted into the blade that causes it stop and drop into the table.
It isn't going to cost 10x.
https://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop/the-technology/
The modules are expensive, and it destroys the blade, which can be very expensive when using real industrial ones meant to be resharpened.
Personally I've had a very poor experience using a sawstop, as well as witnessing it cause younger guys to get overly confident
It's expensive because of the patent holders, not the technical complexity.
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I have good news for you and your fingers. This will not increase the price of your next table saw by 10x.
It's closer to 2x the cost but that's a fairly fat margin since the Sawstop models ate the whole upper end. With a competitor they could probably get down to 1.5x.
I live in a poor, developing country where seat belts aren't mandatory. Also most people get around on scooters going 25-30mph and helmet laws are almost completely unenforced.
I am constantly amazed at the number of foreigners from first world countries who don't wear seatbelts or helmets the moment there is no Big Brother forcing them to.
Road fatality rates are 10x what they are in Germany, Japan, Ireland. 9x what they are in Australia. Until this year drunk driving laws were unenforced and drunk driving was widespread.
> Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today
Woodworker here. The equivalent SawStop to my basic table saw is 3X the price.
Your analogy wouldn’t make sense unless seatbelts tripled the price of cars.
SawStop has a huge patent portfolio and they’ve been cagey about actually letting other people use the full system. This is more of a regulatory capture play, not a safety play with consumers in mind.
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Seatbelts are a legal requirement because my car insurance would have to pay for your medical bills if not wearing a seatbelt turned my failure to stop from a minor accident into a serious head injury. In other words, your lack of a seatbelt affects my liability. There is no analogy between that and safety devices for uninsured activities carried out alone, in our own homes.
This isn't the case in most countries, seatbelts did become a legal requirement though.
Thanks for this logic. It makes sense to me.
Can't all these many people who want the technology purchase it today? I think for every new hobbyist that comes along only because of this saw there will be five less hobbyists who stay away because of cost.
I don’t think the congress intends on prescribing the particular technology in use to accomplish this. That, would be a bad idea. They should set the goals (what constraints are acceptable in the name of making this technology affordable).
If it is being left up to the manufacturer, then half the arguments being mentioned here are moot. Other manufacturers are free to get creative about it. I can think of a few different ways myself - even something like assisted manoeuvring of the wood piece without direct contact of the hand, a retractable shield, etc.
"Everyone's talking about how this will kill the industry."
Because we know the mechanism behind the thing, and it's essentially unavoidable to trip because the lumber industry continues to sell still-wet wood. Until you put that industry firmly in its place, people are just going to be losing tons of money on 'safer' saws via constantly having to replace blades as the stop mechanism breaks them. And then we break out the handheld circular saw without that bullshit and go back to work.
"Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. "
Those of us who ride motorcycles?
> Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today.
Where have you been for the past 4 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain_Award
Ironic how seatbelts aren’t mandated on public forms of transport like trains and buses, yet one is required to wear them in one’s own vehicle. If it truly is based on safety then it should be an all or nothing approach to requiring seat belts on moving vehicles.
Transit has the same advantage as a back seat of private auto: a big non-windshield to crash into in the event of a crash. seatbelts are pretty great. the proliferation of airbags is the correct comparison.
I think smashing into the back of a seat will probably do as much damage as a windshield if not more.
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>> Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off?
There is literally nothing stopping those people from buying the saw that prevents that right now.
I recommend the movie "Walk the Line" for folks on the fence. Entertaining and might learn a thing or two.
You know, I recently bought a table saw. Reading this makes me terrified to use it.
If we're going to do a cost benefit analysis, we need to be pretty certain that the costs do in fact outweigh the benefits. We have hobbled Nuclear power over safety concerns and it's pretty clear we got that one completely wrong with huge negative consequences for society. This is obviously not on the same scale, but it's easy to get these things wrong and never revisit them. From the federal register notice on this, 70% of the supposed societal cost is pain and suffering, which frankly, individuals can decide on for themselves about the risks.
If you take out the pain and suffering values from these costs, you actually find that the cost benefit analysis doesn't pass at all, coming in at 0.5bn to 3.4bn in the red depending on the cost of the regulation on consumers, per the agency's own analysis.
If you got and read what people think about these regulations about people who use the tools, e.g. on /r/tools, they are unanimously opposed to them. Many people have complaints about the proposed products not working as advertised and generally wanting to bypass the system entirely: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/19fmzko/are_you_in_f...
And that gets to the other part of this issue, if the regulation passes, what is the actual behavior change that will happen? Will people buy these saws and use them in the intended manner, or will they switch to alternatives that are just as dangerous, or will they simply turn off the safety features because the false positives are expensive ($100+ in direct costs without counting productivity losses). And note: all the SawStop products have off switches for the safety because they have false positives on wet wood and conductive materials like aluminum.
The headlines for these regulations are always great since nobody likes losing fingers, but there are always trade-offs, and it is extremely easy to make mistakes in these calculations and not foresee the actual knock on effects of them.
Particularly in this case where costs are largely internalized, rather than externalized.
Opposition to a law mandating the use of certain safety equipment is not the same thing as opposition to the safety equipment.
Here in Seattle, there used to be a bicycle helmet law. Helmets reduce the severity of injury in a crash, less severe injuries are obviously better, forcing people to run less risk is therefore justifiable: it seemed to make sense, and it was a popular law.
And yet, it was repealed. Why? Disproportional enforcement, partially - tickets were inevitably handed out primarily to poorer and more marginalized people - but the law actually made things worse for everyone by reducing the total number of riders on the road. There is safety in numbers for bicyclists, who are less likely to be hit by motorists when they are a more common sight - but the health benefit expected from riding a bicycle at all, helmet or no, is actually greater than the health benefit expected by adding a helmet. It is therefore better, both collectively and individually, if we remove every possible barrier to bicycle riding, even though some people will choose not to ride as safely as we wish they might.
Unintended consequences are a real thing, so a person can quite reasonably believe that the SawStop is a great invention which everyone should use, and that a law mandating the use of SawStop would be a bad idea.
Hah either we have know the same carpenter or a lot of pros have lost the top half of three fingers via jointers.
my grandfather only lost one finger tip to a joiner. My father had two fingers pretty well mangled by a table saw. I used to do some carpentry but have lost interest in the last couple of decades.
What really scares me are band saws!
Band saws are scary, but actually quite safe in comparison to table saws or radial arm saws.
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I think bandsaws are much safer than table saws. The band saw naturally forces the work against the work surface instead of towards the user. You should give bandsaws another chance.
If I had a small hobbyist shop I think I would spend extra to get a big bandsaw and make do with a circular saw and a nice track. A circular saw and a router (for dados) can substitute for a table saw. You can't resaw without a bandsaw.
> against seatbelts
I've been wondering about this kind of thing recently.
I think people struggle all their lives with independence, and it is wonderful when you get the feeling of being "sovereign". Being your own man (or woman), confident in who you are and what you can do.
And then we run into forces bigger than us, and some people continue to defend their sovereignty. They want their freedom and they don't want to be told what to do.
(For me, I hate things like companies that want to LOG IN to my bank account to verify my income/etc and will never give up that fight.
for someone else it might be seatbelts.
I wasn't really aware of the seatbelt fight, but I remember helmet laws. My position was that I would wear a helmet, but I wouldn't want to force someone else to wear one.
... on the other hand, I think it is ok to make kids wear helmets.
There's also the knee-jerk anti-reguation crowd. Consider this comment from the article:
"If it's mandated, you're going to have people hanging on to their old saws forever," Juntunen says. "And, you know, that's when I'd say there will be more injuries on an old saw."
Does the mandate in any way change the functionality of a new saw (other than for cutting flesh)?
It does make ripping pressure treated wood a little dicey. Whenever I have to cut wood that is wet I will disable the flesh detection feature temporarily. That's a minor inconvenience though. I will never go back to a saw without the feature.
"These tools are dangerous and table saws cause upwards of 30k injures a year."
Right. I hate the damn things and they've always scared the shit out of me whenever I use them. I've not been seriously injured yet but I've come damn close.
Fortunately, I don't have one at present as someone stole my one during a factory move. I view this as good fortune for eventually I'll have to replace it and I'll do so with one with SawStop-like safety features.
I cannot understand what all the fuss and objections are about, yes SawStop-type saws are more expensive but their cost simply pales into insignificace the moment one's fingers go walkabout.
People are mad to say one can always use table saws safely. That may be the case for 99.99% of the time but it's the unexpected rare event that bites even the most seasoned professionals.
Table saws and their related brethren table routers are by design intrinsically unsafe, and this ought to be damn obvious to both Blind Freddy and the Village Idiot.
Frankly there's something perverse about those who consider table saws safe to use, alternatively they've misguided bravado and or they lack common sense.
Redesigning them to be intrinsically save just makes common sense, and in the long run will cost society much less (as amputations are enormously expensive per capita and it all adds up).
Edit: to those down-voters, I've a longtime friend who is one of the most meticulous and careful workers that I know (much more so than I am). Moreover, that planned thinking extends to the work he turns out, it's nothing but the finest quality.
He's been around power tools all his life and I first observed him using table saws and routers over 40 years ago. That said, about four years ago he was seriously injured when using a table router. Injuries to his hand were so severe that he has lost almost all of the dexterity in his hand, even now after many operations and ongoing professional physiotherapy, he has only regained partial use of his hand.
Perhaps the skeptics need to meet people like him and just see the negative impact such injuries have had on their lives.
There’s a certain sort of delusional self-identified genius that loves the idea of there being something that most people can’t do safely, that they can, because they simply know to be safe, whereas these other idiots do not. It’s like if you took the “C is safe, humans are not!” crowd and gave them something that caused amputations instead of buffer overflows.
Well, it seems there's both types here in equal numbers. Since I posed my comment the votes have risen and fallen many times, it's now back to unity again or close to it.
Usually I don't bother to note votes until logging in agsin which can be days later but the subject seemed somewhat controversial so I watched them (it's a shame HN only provides a summary, so if say I see two points then I've no idea if only one person voted or if it were twenty).
I thought what I said was pretty mild so I'm a bit surprised at the reaction. It's a shame most down-voters don't bother to say what they consider is wrong with one's arguments.
After two close calls I went ahead and bought a SawStop knowing it would be cheaper than an emergency room visit.
I'm shocked that so many people like yourself are shocked about resistance to safety devices. Regardless of how I feel about it, I can hear the objections the moment I read the article title:
"It's never hurt me"
"I accept the risk"
"It will double the price of a saw"
"I won't see any of these 'society savings', only the sawmakers will see more money"
Yeah, maybe a public ad campaign would help.
It depends what the item is. Its intrinsic dangers and whether they're obvious or not to (a), the untrained and unskilled; (b), novices with little training and experience; (c), trained users but who are irregular uses and get out of practice; (d), trained users with regular/daily experience, (e), specialist users without experience or with little regular experience who take particular care in dangerous one-off situations; (f) specialist users who've regular/daily experience of dangerous situations; (g), any or all of the above under specialist/controlled conditions or in special environments and (h) any or of the above in emergency situations—who is selected and or authorized to take charge under under adverse/dangerous situations.
That list might seem like a lot of twaddle, but I'll illustrate with a few examples. Case (e) may involve an industrial chemist who is put in the unusual situation of having to deal with a dangerous, toxic and explosive chemical that's not normally found in common use—for example, pentaborane which comes to mind because it's a HN news item today. He knows what it is and its dangers but he hasn't dealt with it before so he goes to inordinate lengths to handle it safely. On the other hand, case (f) is a Similarly trained chemist with special training in the handling of pentaborane and he applies a regulated set of procedures to handle the substance.
Table saws are both intrinsically unsafe and have high impact when things go wrong which is borne out by statistics no matter the jurisdiction, country etc. Unfortunately, like motor bikes, they've been historically grandfathered into common use from an era when safety was hardly considered important.
Had motorbikes been suddenly invented today they wouldn't be allowed on public roadways. Same goes for table saws, they can be bought freely and anyone can use them without any training whatsoever. If invented today one would have to be trained and or licensed to use them.
We've seen how regulations change over time and how they are becoming tighter every day just about everywhere. When I was a kid, where I live anyone could buy fireworks including yours truly at the age of six. Now fireworks have been banned altogether here, not even adults such as I am who've (a) been trained in chemistry and (b) had military training and who was trained in handling things much more dangerous than fireworks for domestic consumption can do so either. I find this both irritating and irksome and an over intrusion of the nanny state into my affairs.
I'd suggest that those who voted down my original post also felt this way when they read my post, and I don't blame them one bit. The trouble is multifold, the State regulates, say fireworks after irresponsible use and after kids have become blinded. Regulations are introduced more from emotional reasons than based on actual harm to large numbers of people. The law now makes no exception for experience, nor does it allow exceptions for those with demonstrable experience (the only exception here is those with special training for public displays such as for new year's eve).
We've seen this progressive tightening of regulations in just about every country on the planet and in every field of endeavor—from drug regulations, to vehicle licenses, to firearm licenses and regulations, to restrictions on purchasing what the State perceives to be dangerous chemicals (when I was a kid local pharmacists sold thallium and strychnine for rat poison to anyone but they've long since been banned (I'd doubt if these highly toxic chemicals can still be purchased anywhere in the Western world).
The trouble is that laws and regulations are horribly uneven and often they extend into overregulation.
Now look at the facts: both thallium and strychnine were banned in many places decades ago because of a small number of accidental poisonings and an even much smaller number of deliberate ones. On the other hand, table saws—according to statistics—have maimed and ruined the lives of orders of magnitude more people than those poisons have ever done but it's only now that we are just trying to make them safer.
Unlike motor vehicles and forklifts, there's still no talk of training people before they can use table saws—nor is there any talk of requiring users to be licensed to use them.
When looked at objectively and in comparison with similar regulations elsewhere, this tightening of regulations in respect of table saws really isn't that unreasonable, and by other comparable standards it's long overdue.
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I genuinely can’t tell if this is satire or not. Like, I know that this is something people will often say as an unoriginal attempt at a humorous reply, but I am…genuinely unsure.
A phenomon frequently called Poe's law! And I too am confused although given the context, I'm thinking "serious"
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You're a young apprentice working at a shop who is too cheap to purchase those safety devices for their employees. What do they do?
I've always thought seatbelts should be mandatory on motorcycles. Ain't had one in ages, but I still wear my helmet wherever I go. Never can have too many laws. Authority always knows best.
I luv u hackernews. Long live the eggheads!
Future Headline: Man sent to glorious and compassionate American prison for not using riving knife gets shanked to death with one days before parole.
Future Hackernews Post with 10k upvotes and gushing comments: How the judicial system is creating strong Americans and healing millions - and how silicon valley has assisted
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait and otherwise breaking the site guidelines?
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules, we'd appreciate it. Note this one: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
If you had a legitimate point to make you wouldn’t resort to blatantly and intentionally absurd faux-analogies that don’t even pretend to seek to pose a fair comparison. This is childish. Though looking at your profile you seem to wear being unlikeable and hostile as some sort of badge of pride.
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It's really not analogous to seatbelts.
It's really simple to use a table saw safely: don't ever get physically close enough (by far!) for the spinning blade to cut you, or stand where it can fling something at you.
Then even if there's no riving knife and blade guard it's not going to ruin your day.
This means that you'll sometimes need to build a small jig to push wood into the saw, but usually you can just use a long stick to push the wood into it.
Every single table saw accident video you'll see is people who've clearly become way too complacent with them, or are trying to save themselves a few minutes of setup time.
It's simple to use a car safely too. Don't ever speed, be aware of your surroundings at all times, and practice defensive driving.
In theory.
As someone who has used a table saw, you simply cannot account for every variable factored in to having a 10" piece of sharpened carbide steel spinning at 5,000 RPMs and shoving a piece of probably inconsistently structured building materials through it, many, many, many times to accomplish a job. Maybe the sawmill left a nail in there for you: shit happens.
In the immortal words of Jean Luc Picard: It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That's why we build things with safety features: to manage those risks.
No it's not. Even if you're the best defensive driver in the world a seatbelt might still save you if someone plows into you while you're stopped at a red light.
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Just accept it, smile, nod, and deny the existence of the router, lathe, bandsaw, angle grinder with a circular blade on it etc. Chainsaws are probably next up against the wall though since they're pretty well represented in low-effort horror media
While I agree with your premise, mistakes still happen.
I do all of the things you mentioned, plus I use pushers or a crosscut sled whenever possible. It should be impossible for me to make contact, but it only takes a split second of stupidity or inattention to mess up
They're holding it wrong?
I am not against seatbelts.
I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts.
>Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off? If you think this is a factor in people buying or not buying a table saw, I have a bridge to sell you.
People are driving on public roads, using public first responders, being taken to the emergency room, etc.
Not wearing a seatbelt costs society time and money.
Without regard to the merits of this particular case, in general, the offering of public services shouldn't be used as a pretext to infringe on freedoms.
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You are aware that “first responders” send you a bill after you use their services, right? And that’s in addition to taxes and levies that fund them in the first place. I don’t mind the seat belts of course, but let’s not pretend that all of that is free of charge to begin with. Besides, first responders will likely need to be there anyway in most situations where a seatbelt would save your life.
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Unless done alone in a windowless, lead-sealed basement, almost anything we do affects others. It's too easy to take away freedom that way.
I wear seatbelts; I could understand insurance contracts not covering costs if the insured didn't wear a seatbelt; but I don't think government should mandate it. I'm not anti-regulation; I agree with the table saw safety requirement.
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You're not wrong, but this is also an argument that you shouldn't ever be allowed to do anything dangerous or risky.
We allow all sorts of dangerous activities with the same problems. If we're worried about the rescue and medical costs, we should definitely ban skiing, skydiving, climbing, etc.
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Just because society chooses to voluntarily take on a responsibility does not/should not give it the power to mitigate it.
The cost to society is voluntary and self imposed.
I can't unilaterally decide to pay for you and then use that to impose whatever rules I want on you.
You could argue the same about people playing sports instead of safely exercising in a gym. And what about those consuming drugs? An argument to ban all drugs. If that's the standard there are a ton of activities you will curb or ban.
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I don’t think that’s why we mandated seatbelts. I don’t see any particular reason to believe either way, that seatbelts save money or cost it—if people die quickly they don’t cost the medical system much at all.
I think we mandated seatbelts because they prevent tragic deaths and cost almost nothing to manufacture. Sometimes we actually do impose on people’s liberty in the interest of preventing them from doing something stupid, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.
I mean, if we did look up the data and found that they actually do end up costing more, would you be in favor of banning seatbelts? I certainly wouldn’t!
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Easy compromise: if you die without a seatbelt (or helmet for a motorcycle) you are considered to have fully donated your remains for medical and scientific use, no opt-out or exceptions.
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> I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts.
No one cares, you don't have a good enough reason. It's ok to have some kinds of mandates. I don't want my tax dollars going to pay EMS and police to shovel your remains off the highway because you wanted to drive like an idiot.
This has got to be the absolute worst argument in favor of seatbelts, and will only ever amount to preaching to the authoritarian choir. For everyone else your argument actually serves to undermine support for public services like first responders - if the societal cost of such services includes the legislating of personal behavior simply to keep the financial cost of said services down, perhaps the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
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Safety has 100% been a factor in many of my tool purchases, mistakes happen, especially to amateurs, and most people would rather not lose fingers to a hobby.
But why?
I remember a time before seatbelts were compulsory and very few people wore them.
> I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts.
I’m personally for seatbelts* and against mandates for their use. Giving the government another tool to meddle in the lives of people, fining them, raising their insurance rates, and a law that’s easy to selectively enforce seems like a worse tradeoff than a few people who will decide to not wear one and avoidably come to grief as a result of their choice.
* To the point that I added them to a car of mine that didn’t originally come equipped with them. I like them and wear them regularly by choice, as should be the case.
Don't even bother trying to get a rational explanation for this.
This kind of mentality is not rational.
Are you against public health measures in general?
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Let me put it this way: I once “red-teamed” the constitution, and walked away with the conclusion health justifications were the biggest vulnerability point. Imagining a constitutional APT, I’m very wary of justifications that rely on it…
What is the point of society if not to look out for one another? Protecting you in the end makes me safer too
I think it’s more about mandates from a government vs looking out for each other.
The original fear of mandating seatbelts was it becoming a slippery slope, and the government continuing to mandate other aspects of citizens lives.
A similar fear happened when drunk driving was outlawed, but obviously its implications in harming others was a good justification for it.
With seatbelts, it’s less harm on others if I don’t wear it, more so a strain on society as a whole (first responders, more serious medical attention)
In general though I agree that governments shouldn’t be mandating what individuals can do to themselves. The argument lies in how much those actions effect others in a tertiary sense (doing drugs only effects me, but if I go into a coma that’s a strain on society and a blurry line. If become violent because of those drugs, it’s more concrete)
Meanwhile alcohol is legal, and is involved in more murders and domestic violence than any other substance.
The federal government's responsibilities is literally to collect taxes to maintain a standing army, and to coordinate cross-state issues that the states themselves for some reason aren't able to regulate themselves. That's what its scope is supposed to be. Are states not able to pass the table saw regulations they feel is appropriate for their citizens? I feel like they are. Why does the federal government need to step in and mandate .. table saw laws for our states? For me it's just another small step in the long line of steps towards having one overarching federal government that controls everything, like other countries have, which the US is not supposed to have.
I've never understood this nonsensical fear of federal oversight. Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies. I recall some saying, this stuff is ours, get your own. And why does it make sense for some backwater state to decide to dumb down their residents with a crap education system. Isn't that a race to the bottom if a state is left alone to elect inferior education, which is a real issue in the American South? Some states will choose to be dominant intellectually and others will choose conspiracies as history. That makes no sense to me at all. I also recall a certain French prime minister say it gave him great comfort to know each child in France was learning poetry.
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Unfortunately FDR's justices overturned that aspect of the constitution long ago.