Comment by WillAdams
3 days ago
Safe is a function of training and guards and competence when using a tool and above all an awareness of the forces involved and how to position oneself so that should something go wrong, one will not be in the line of movement of potential projectiles. This means that the first thing one must ask oneself when walking up to a tool is, "Am I well-rested, and sufficiently clear-headed and well-versed in this operation that I will be able to focus on using this tool safely?"
Sawstop wouldn't have a business model if tablesaw accidents were tried by a jury of shop teachers whose awareness of this is brought into focus by a career of explaining how to safely use power tools (see my post elsethread).
Everyone has an individual level of random line noise.
There's a whole field of human factors engineering that seems to agree "just being careful" is not a reasonable strategy by itself.
I have one brain, and the world contains multiple objects, which exist at the same time and don't take turns in an orderly fashion.
There will always be something I'm not consciously focusing on, and there is large individual variance in how well people can do things automatically.
That's the thing, one should _never_ think of using a power tool automatically --- there should _always_ be a concern re: what part of my body could be injured or removed?