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In 2015, 4,700 people in the US lost a finger or other body part to table-saw incidents. Most of those injuries didn't have to happen, thanks to technology invented in 1999 by entrepreneur Stephen Gass. By giving his blade a slight electric charge, his saw is able to detect contact with a human hand and stop spinning in a few milliseconds. A widely circulated video[1] shows a test on a hot dog that leaves the wiener unscathed.
Now federal regulators are considering whether to make Gass' technology mandatory in the table-saw industry. The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced plans for a new rule in May, and the rules could take effect in the coming months.
But established makers of power tools vehemently object. They say the mandate could double the cost of entry-level table saws and destroy jobs in the power-tool industry. They also point out that Gass holds dozens of patents on the technology. If the CPSC makes the technology mandatory for table saws, that could give Gass a legal monopoly over the table-saw industry until at least 2021, when his oldest patents expire.
At the same time, table-saw related injuries cost society billions every year. The CPSC predicts switching to the safer saw design will save society $1,500 to $4,000 per saw sold by reducing medical bills and lost work.
"You commissioners have the power to take one of the most dangerous products ever available to consumers and make it vastly safer," Gass said at a CPSC public hearing on Wednesday.
[1] SawStop Hot dog Video - Saw blade retracts within 5 milliseconds of accidental contact - YouTube.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:29AM (10 children)
This is one of those things where the aphorism, "you only have to be unlucky once," really applies. You can be as vigilant and careful as possible, but one slip up is all it takes. An example that happened at my local butcher, was that one of his workers was cutting some meat with a meat band saw when a car ran into the store, which caused him to jump and side-shift the blade, which then snapped in two and went flying across the shop, punched through a plastic wall and cut someone on the other side. I would never have believed that story if it had been told to me by someone else, but the point stands in that many things can happen that cause otherwise normal situations to turn dangerous or deadly. Same with a table saw, you can take all the precautions in the world and still have accidents. And so I'm clear, we could mandate these special guards and I guarantee that people would still get hurt in saw accidents. We need to do a cost-benefit analysis, which I'm not sure comes out in this technology's favor given the costs.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:08AM (8 children)
AC writes: "We need to do a cost-benefit analysis"
Which is exactly right, and completely true, and applies to essentially every government regulation ever.
And it never happens.
Instead, we get (a) people wanting to make money, like the patent holder in this case, (b) politicians wanting to be seen "doing something", (d) ambulance chasing lawyers rejoicing over yet another reason to file lawsuits, (d) Darwin-award winners doing stupid stuff, and ... I'm sure I'm forgetting other factors...
Part of the problem is also the societal expectation that complete safety is even possible. Another poster wrote about a bizarre accident in a butcher shop. Yep, shit happens, and there is literally nothing we can do to make life completely safe from the unexpected.
An objective analysis of costs vs. benefits would probably eliminate 90% of government regulations, and make entire herds of bureaucrats unemployed. Unfortunately, it just isn't going to happen :-/
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday August 12 2017, @02:35PM (6 children)
It costs $65 to add this tech to a saw. How much is your hand worth? How much will the hospital bill be? I really don't think a study is needed to determine that fire is hot and water is wet.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 12 2017, @10:40PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday August 13 2017, @05:32PM (4 children)
The patent expires shortly. It will be expired, along with the monopoly, before congress can pass a law. Congress moves slowly.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @01:03AM
Now I know you are being disingenuous. First, Congress doesn't have to pass a law, the SawStop people are seeking an administrative rule, which, by law, takes a handful of months, unless Congress or the President take active steps to stop. Second, is just because the first patents expire around 2021 (based on a quick analysis of priority date), that doesn't mean that all patents expire then, and he and his company have a lot.
Of course, you'd probably be OK with them requiring all books have special anti-papercut paper invented by Bob's Paper Co.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 14 2017, @03:52AM (2 children)
A patent expires shortly, but he has more such.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday August 14 2017, @02:12PM (1 child)
The basic patent is set to expire. Afterwards, anybody can make one who has the tools, plans, and expertise.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 15 2017, @02:16AM
As long as they don't violate the other patents that this inventor has on the device. It sounds like he has plenty of blocking patents in place.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday August 12 2017, @05:35PM
Well, you seem to be carefully ignoring all the forces against regulation of products like this, including but not limited to:
(e) The manufacturers who don't want to go through the time and expense of figuring out how to comply with the new regulations,
(f) The medical device manufacturers and hospitals that profit when more injuries occur.
(g) The retailers who want to keep prices down so they can move more product.
(h) Politicians wanting to be seen as friendly to business.
There is definitely such a thing as bad over-regulation. There's also definitely such a thing as bad under-regulation. The really hard part is finding the sweet spot between reasonable cost and not too much risk, and maintaining that as new technology changes what can be done at reasonable cost.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @01:47PM
Indeed, I'm a 'numb skull' who lost the tip of one finger and damaged another on a circular saw, in my case I'd finished cutting, was removing the cut wood from the table in preparation for running another bit through, there was a massive glare/reflection in my glasses, one startle response later....fingers strayed too near the rear end of saw blade (crown guard fitted, but blade was high) saw go chomp chomp...or, more precisely slicey, dicey...
This was my first accident after 30 years in workshops, and 40 years of using power tools of all types, was there some idiocy involved? maybe, but there was a lot more 'shit happens'. Workshops are full of inherently dangerous machinery, no matter how safety aware you are, familiarity breeds, in my case, complacency. The cutting job I'd carried out on the saw which mohel'd my finger I'd done over two-three years without incident despite it being technically the wrong saw for the job (the argument is that as we've a couple of smaller table saws which would have been more suitable, but as they were in use I should have waited, but, to paraphrase the Bard of Ayrshire, a saw's a saw for a' that...) that morning, however, thanks to clear skies, a strong sun and it's reflection off the side of a passing white van and two sets of open doors..shit indeed happened.
Regarding the Sawstop, the blade dropping/retracting isn't the most impressive part of the system (and would be impractical/impossible to implement on the saw which bit me), the electrically released spring driven brake is the part of the beastie I'm more impressed with, and looking at the videos, this could be retrofitted to all the saws in my current workshop without too much hassle, and I see they have also have a Bandsaw prototype (I always assumed that it'd be one of the Bandsaws (especially the Band Resaw, never trusted the bugger) which would eventually get me..)
As to all the whingeing about monopoly from the saw manufacturers, if it stops any other 'numb skull' losing fingers, then fuck them. Mr Gass has come up with a pretty good thing IMHO, he deserves to profit.