Comment by grep_name

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.