Posted on 05/28/2011 9:48:56 AM PDT by Shout Bits
This week, NPR reported that Consumers Union (CU) campaign to compel table saw manufacturers to install expensive safety equipment. While the new safety technology is impressive, this is yet another example of do-gooders and bureaucrats colluding to run the lives of people who do not need the government’s help.
A table saw is as its name implies – a flat table with a spinning saw blade sticking up in the middle. While table saws come with shields to cover the spinning blade, most people do not use them. If used improperly, a table saw is indeed a seriously dangerous tool. Still, used correctly, a table saw is completely safe. Perhaps the most famous carpenter, Norm Abram features safety instructions in each of his shows.
Shout Bits’s author knows, from personal experience, many victims of power tool accidents. People with amputated and injured fingers are a potent reminder that power tools can be dangerous. Still, in each of these cases, the victim was not following basic safety rules or was simply intoxicated. Sober workers who are diligent in following safety rules keep their fingers.
Knowing that some people will be careless, Steve Gass invented a new table saw feature which senses flesh as it touches the blade and nearly instantly stops its rotation. Demonstrations show that a worker would only suffer a minor laceration rather than a trip to the ER. Gass sells thousands of his own enhanced saws each year, and any employer would be well advised to spend the extra $1,000 or so his product costs.
Not good enough says CU. Not enough people are choosing to buy Gass’s product, and Gass is charging too much for his technology. CU does not care that Gass owns his idea; every table saw must have his technology, even if some people don’t want it. CU arbitrarily states that the technology should only add $100 to each saw, essentially stealing Gass’s property by capping its value. Further, CU wants to force everyone to buy the enhanced saws, even on $200 light duty models designed for occasional users. Beware weekend carpenters, if CU and the government have any say, your hobby will become much more expensive.
Even if CU gets its way and every table saw costs somewhere between $100 and $1,000 extra for Gass’s safety technology, there is no reason to believe that accidents will decrease. Gass’s technology does not protect from the saw jamming and ‘kicking back’ at the operator, and it does not prevent eye injury. Also, Gass’s technology does not work for miter saws (chop saws) that also have exposed spinning blades. A careless worker will always find a way to injure himself, even if the table saw is made safer.
Also consider CU’s other political campaigns: Prescription for Change, which advocates for a single payer (socialist) health care system in the US; Greener Choices, which pushes consumers to overpay for basic needs in the guise of helping the planet; and Hear Us Now, which wants the government to control internet content by regulating internet service providers products and pricing (net-neutrality). The particular activist working on the table saw issue, Sally Greenberg, is a lawyer for CU and the Alliance for Justice, an anti-corporate socialist think tank. Greenberg and CU may want safer table saws, but the only tools they know are government mandates and socialist confiscation of private property.
So, an entrepreneur invents a way to make work safer. He markets his invention to a variety of customer needs, and anyone is free to adopt his safety innovation. To do-gooders at CU, this is not an improvement, but a problem. The entrepreneur is greedy; his pricing must be regulated. Consumers are too stupid to help themselves; they must be forced to buy the invention. CU and Greenberg, like all socialists, seek to destroy the very entrepreneurial spirit that creates worthy improvements to life, all in the name of protecting adults who neither need nor want a nanny to run their lives.
Carpenters should also be prevented from building tall homes or bridges to cut down on injuries from falls.
Say 8 feet tops?
Dang! I won’t be able to cut hot dogs on my table say anymore.
An gass just keeps costing us more....:o)
Lot more evil saws out there waiting on a body part!
Still risky.
I hit my finger with a hammer once. I pinched my fingers with a pair of pliers.
So many risks. So many more regulations.
Saw a video on this once. When this thing trips, it ruins the blade. I think I’ll just work diligently and take my chances.
Now if they came up with a sure fire method to prevent kick-back, I might be interested.
I guessing that most people who subscribe to their magazine don’t realize that CU is a wholly Socialist organization.
I agree. Also true for AARP.
I wanna see ‘em try it out versus an Altendorf F-45.
30 years in the cab biz as a saw jockey, still have all 10. Filled out many accident reports for others and @75% were from people who had reached under a “safety device”.
Would also insist on seeing test results from hitting pitch pockets, bugs and buckshot before allowing it in shop!
Good point, but if the government has its way, you won’t have that choice. If the government mandated solution does not work for some people, then the government just passes more regulations.
This guy has been around for 30 years with his really expensive super complicated “safety” table saw. He could not sell it to citizens so he pressured OSHA to mandate that his saw be the only one available to sell. Now he tries this. What a real hoser this inventor is.
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