Mother Jones talks about Table Saws

[LCHIEN]

...
If you want to believe Mr. Gass is being resonsable you have to get comfortable with him testifying in court that a person who used a table saw with no blade guard and with no rip fence was injured because he didn't have a SS on the saw. To me, the clear cause of the injury was the lack of use of the safety features that were proviced + operator error. If a SS is on the saw and there is a switch that allows you to turn if off when cutting wet wood, why couldn't an injured party still sue because the device was turned off and they got hurt? I don't think it is reasonable to argue that you can deliberately not use safety equipment provided with the tool and still say your injury was not your fault. If it is OK to do this, then either the SS has to have no switch (and destroy cartridges and blades if wet wood is encoutered) or there is no reduction in risk for the manufacturer.

Jim

The courts have made it clear that manufacturers have responsibility to some extent. That includes reasonableness as a criteria. They must have done all they could reasonably do to prevent an accident. In the old days providing a guard and instructions for use were reasonable.

The new "reasonable", according to Mr Gass, is that they should have used his method or something equivalent which is on the market and proven to work reasonably well.

[cabinetman]

An interesting statistic would be of all the reported table saw injuries, to include amputations, were done with the saw guard in place. I'd even settle for a percentage.

.

[vaking]

I have a shark guard and I use it almost all the time. But the original blade guard that came with my BT3100 was a total garbage. It interferes with a lot of operations, it is very hard to install and remove and it scratches wood. So until I got shark guard I was using my saw without a guard a lot. I believe if you try collecting statistics how many cuts are made on BT3100 without a guard as opposed to with the guard - you will find that more are made without (as I said - shark guard does not count). Please also note - original blade guard on BT3100 is also supposed to prevent kickback, not only save your fingers. That is why it scratches wood with sharp metal edges. I believe from manufacturing cost perspective - original blade guard and shark guard would be about equal. Ryobi could have supplied their saw with a much more practical safety accessory than they did. In other words Ryobi deliberately supplied their saw with accessory that would have prevented all typical injuries but is so obtrusive that it is almost always removed. I believe that original blade guard was deliberately made as a legal protection for the manufacturer, not a practical safety device to save users' fingers. I think at that time Ryobi actually believed that they could win cases if the user got hurt while using saw without a blade guard because it was user's fault and they were deliberately making user remove that guard and accept the liability. So I completely agree with juries that don't buy into that legal BS. I agree with Loring that the key word here is "reasonable". Using table saw without any fence (freehand) is not reasonable. Using table saw without a table and kneeling on the floor while cutting wood on table saw is not reasonable. Using table saw without a blade guard may be reasonable if the guard supplied by manufacturer is such a POS. The understanding of reasonable is changing. So far I don't think that not having Sawstop technology automatically makes manufacturer liable. I think 10 years from now Gass's patents will probably expire, the technology will become available without heavy royalties to Gass and we shall see this technology on practically all large saws. I think we shall still see portable saws without that technology though.