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Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. So many people are certain it won'

• slackfan 2y ago
  I am not against seatbelts. I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts. >Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off? If you think this is a factor in people buying or not buying a table saw, I have a bridge to sell you.
  • pwthornton 2y ago
    People are driving on public roads, using public first responders, being taken to the emergency room, etc. Not wearing a seatbelt costs society time and money.
    • jstanley 2y ago
      Without regard to the merits of this particular case, in general, the offering of public services shouldn't be used as a pretext to infringe on freedoms.
      • Schiendelman 2y ago
        When public services are offered on balance, neither infringement can be considered in isolation. You have to compare the two infringements (in this case seatbelt regulation vs hospital responsibilities). Fighting each absolutely can often result in more total infringement!
      • WesternWind 2y ago
        The offering of public services would only be pretextual if it wasn't a genuine offer, right? So I'm not sure I'm understanding your argument. Also public services are inherently shared services. The delay time and tax payer expense to individuals to have public employees to remove the dead bodies and broken windshields of folks who didn't wear seatbelts on the freeway is an imposition on the shared enjoyment of the freeway and on tax payer income. Likewise even assuming every injury were treatable, every person getting their thumb reattached or whatever because of a preventable injury means a doctor's time isn't available to treat other injuries that couldn't be prevented. uninsured individuals with these injuries also increase the cost of insurance (one of multiple reasons why our medical costs in the US are higher per capita). Nor is every injury treatable to that extent. Bet setting that aside, if you really want the freedom to cut off your own fingers accidentally, I bet all the dangerous tablesaws that currently exist will become available at garage sales or whatever very cheaply, so the frugal consumer still wins. Arguably gives a whole new meaning to five finger discount.
      • uoaei 2y ago
        People's actions have impact on the ability of public services to function. Do you think parking a semi trailer in front of the ER is a "freedom" worth defending? What kinds of deterrence or punishment is appropriate?
      • jiggawatts 2y ago
        Your right to buy a massive truck for driving two miles to your office job without a reversing camera infringes on the right if my three year old kid to live when you back up out of a parking space and can’t see behind the massive and oddly clean truck bed. Similarly, you aren’t the only one that gets to use your car. Assuming you have friends, they might like a lift from you and not risk their lives doing so because you choose FREEDOM! over seat belts. Or the friends of your kid that you drive to soccer practice. Their mums and dads would like the freedom to have their kids reach adulthood. We live in a society. We’re not Doctor Manhattan floating above the surface of Mars in perfect solipsistic isolation. It’s not about the government. It’s about your friends, family, neighbours, and community… all of whom are represented by the government.
    • ImJamal 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • marcus0x62 2y ago
        Show me the cost-benefit analysis that a lack of bubble wrap is causing a huge number of ER visits and amputations every year, and we'll talk.
        • ImJamal 2y ago
          Since nobody walks around in bubble wrap I don't think there would be any existing cost-benefit analyses. I was using bubble wrap as a joke thing more than an actual suggestion. My point is, just because something would lower the number of costs to society doesn't mean we should start mandating it. An example of something that for sure saves lives and lowers public costs is mandating adults wear helms on bicycles.
          • A1kmm 2y ago
            > An example of something that for sure saves lives and lowers public costs is mandating adults wear helms on bicycles. That's potentially a bad example. The largest cause of mortality (or lost quality-adjusted life years - QALY) is from cardiovascular events, and those events are inversely correlated to physical activity levels. Cycling is physical activity, and helmet laws, where passed, have typically coincided with a marked decrease in cycling. Under some reasonable assumptions, helmet laws cause less cycling, which causes less physical activity in the population, which causes more cardiovascular events, and the overall negative QALY impact outweighs the relatively small positive impact from fewer head injuries (especially compared to government pro-helmet safety messaging that has been optimised to minimise cycling deterrence while increasing helmet uptake as an alternative policy).
            • s1artibartfast 2y ago
              Cardiovascular disease imposes costs society, both direct costs through the medical system, and opportunity cost in lost taxes when workers die. If we apply the logic above, those costs provide justification for mandating and criminalizing diet and exercise.
    • ein0p 2y ago
      You are aware that “first responders” send you a bill after you use their services, right? And that’s in addition to taxes and levies that fund them in the first place. I don’t mind the seat belts of course, but let’s not pretend that all of that is free of charge to begin with. Besides, first responders will likely need to be there anyway in most situations where a seatbelt would save your life.
      • streb-lo 2y ago
        In a lot of countries there is no bill, it's all paid for by taxes. Which is why seatbelt mandates make sense, they reduce the cost for everyone.
      • LoganDark 2y ago
        Doesn't using seatbelts still reduce cost then, as it can prevent you from having to pay for first responders?
      • spywaregorilla 2y ago
        In the US that bill is typically paid for by insurance, which means that, even if your neighbor needs the ambulance, you're paying for it in the awkwardly socialized form of raised premiums or perhaps even more awkwardly removed: lower direct compensation due to employer provided health care comprising a larger share of your total comp.
      • ipqk 2y ago
        Who do I send the bill to when I'm stuck in traffic for 2 hours waiting for them to mop up the ejected person?
    • cm2187 2y ago
      You could argue the same about people playing sports instead of safely exercising in a gym. And what about those consuming drugs? An argument to ban all drugs. If that's the standard there are a ton of activities you will curb or ban.
      • dghlsakjg 2y ago
        We have required safety gear to participate in most sports leagues too…
        • onedognight 2y ago
          These rules are sponsored by “Big Shin-guard” and everybody knows it.
        • jtbayly 2y ago
          By law?
          • dghlsakjg 2y ago
            Well you won’t be allowed to participate, and could be trespassed if you refuse to follow the rules… so kinda
            • jtbayly 2y ago
              That's not remotely "by law." If I could start a league tomorrow where shin-guards were optional, would the police come knocking or not? If not, there's no law. There's private rules. The whole question under debate is whether actual laws are necessary for this situation. I fail to see how appealing to voluntary association rules have any bearing on the question.
              • dghlsakjg 2y ago
                You wouldn’t be allowed to use public fields without insurance, and no one is going to insure you if your whole thing is “no safety gear”. So you would have to use a private field. So the practical effect is identical to seatbelts; you can absolutely operate without seatbelts/shin guards, but only in completely private facilities.
    • lokar 2y ago
      Easy compromise: if you die without a seatbelt (or helmet for a motorcycle) you are considered to have fully donated your remains for medical and scientific use, no opt-out or exceptions.
      • llbeansandrice 2y ago
        Dying from a crash doesn't mean you don't put pressure on social services. You could die at the scene (first responders and paramedics still), on the way to the hospital, upon arrival, or hours or even days after. This does nothing to alleviate those pressures and the number of organs that are useful for transplant after a violent crash (that kills the occupant!) is basically zero.
        • lokar 2y ago
          It’s mostly head trauma is both cases, the kidneys should be fine
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • wolverine876 2y ago
      Unless done alone in a windowless, lead-sealed basement, almost anything we do affects others. It's too easy to take away freedom that way. I wear seatbelts; I could understand insurance contracts not covering costs if the insured didn't wear a seatbelt; but I don't think government should mandate it. I'm not anti-regulation; I agree with the table saw safety requirement.
      • Symbiote 2y ago
        It's not only your life at risk. A British road safety advert: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mKHY69AFstE https://youtube.com/watch?v=mKHY69AFstE
        • wolverine876 2y ago
          As I said, everything we do affects others. That can't be the sole basis.
    • bee_rider 2y ago
      I don’t think that’s why we mandated seatbelts. I don’t see any particular reason to believe either way, that seatbelts save money or cost it—if people die quickly they don’t cost the medical system much at all. I think we mandated seatbelts because they prevent tragic deaths and cost almost nothing to manufacture. Sometimes we actually do impose on people’s liberty in the interest of preventing them from doing something stupid, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise. I mean, if we did look up the data and found that they actually do end up costing more, would you be in favor of banning seatbelts? I certainly wouldn’t!
      • cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • bee_rider 2y ago
          What is? My post? Double check it, I haven’t claimed to have any evidence, and I’m saying that the life-saving aspect is sufficient to mandate seatbelts.
    • s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Just because society chooses to voluntarily take on a responsibility does not/should not give it the power to mitigate it. The cost to society is voluntary and self imposed. I can't unilaterally decide to pay for you and then use that to impose whatever rules I want on you.
    • nitwit005 2y ago
      You're not wrong, but this is also an argument that you shouldn't ever be allowed to do anything dangerous or risky. We allow all sorts of dangerous activities with the same problems. If we're worried about the rescue and medical costs, we should definitely ban skiing, skydiving, climbing, etc.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • iamflimflam1 2y ago
    But why? I remember a time before seatbelts were compulsory and very few people wore them. > I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts.
    • sokoloff 2y ago
      I’m personally for seatbelts* and against mandates for their use. Giving the government another tool to meddle in the lives of people, fining them, raising their insurance rates, and a law that’s easy to selectively enforce seems like a worse tradeoff than a few people who will decide to not wear one and avoidably come to grief as a result of their choice. * To the point that I added them to a car of mine that didn’t originally come equipped with them. I like them and wear them regularly by choice, as should be the case.
    • Teever 2y ago
      Don't even bother trying to get a rational explanation for this. This kind of mentality is not rational.
  • thorncorona 2y ago
    Are you against public health measures in general?
    • slackfan 2y ago
      [flagged]
    • gnuser 2y ago
      Let me put it this way: I once “red-teamed” the constitution, and walked away with the conclusion health justifications were the biggest vulnerability point. Imagining a constitutional APT, I’m very wary of justifications that rely on it…
  • TSiege 2y ago
    What is the point of society if not to look out for one another? Protecting you in the end makes me safer too
    • spacephysics 2y ago
      I think it’s more about mandates from a government vs looking out for each other. The original fear of mandating seatbelts was it becoming a slippery slope, and the government continuing to mandate other aspects of citizens lives. A similar fear happened when drunk driving was outlawed, but obviously its implications in harming others was a good justification for it. With seatbelts, it’s less harm on others if I don’t wear it, more so a strain on society as a whole (first responders, more serious medical attention) In general though I agree that governments shouldn’t be mandating what individuals can do to themselves. The argument lies in how much those actions effect others in a tertiary sense (doing drugs only effects me, but if I go into a coma that’s a strain on society and a blurry line. If become violent because of those drugs, it’s more concrete) Meanwhile alcohol is legal, and is involved in more murders and domestic violence than any other substance.
  • GendingMachine 2y ago
    Safety has 100% been a factor in many of my tool purchases, mistakes happen, especially to amateurs, and most people would rather not lose fingers to a hobby.
  • thegrim000 2y ago
    The federal government's responsibilities is literally to collect taxes to maintain a standing army, and to coordinate cross-state issues that the states themselves for some reason aren't able to regulate themselves. That's what its scope is supposed to be. Are states not able to pass the table saw regulations they feel is appropriate for their citizens? I feel like they are. Why does the federal government need to step in and mandate .. table saw laws for our states? For me it's just another small step in the long line of steps towards having one overarching federal government that controls everything, like other countries have, which the US is not supposed to have.
    • baggy_trough 2y ago
      Unfortunately FDR's justices overturned that aspect of the constitution long ago.
    • EarthAmbassador 2y ago
      I've never understood this nonsensical fear of federal oversight. Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies. I recall some saying, this stuff is ours, get your own. And why does it make sense for some backwater state to decide to dumb down their residents with a crap education system. Isn't that a race to the bottom if a state is left alone to elect inferior education, which is a real issue in the American South? Some states will choose to be dominant intellectually and others will choose conspiracies as history. That makes no sense to me at all. I also recall a certain French prime minister say it gave him great comfort to know each child in France was learning poetry.
      • wolverine876 2y ago
        > Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies. The US learned between 1776 and 1789, under the Articles of Confederation. That's why they made a new constitution with a stronger centeral government.
        • sokoloff 2y ago
  • burnte 2y ago
    > I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts. No one cares, you don't have a good enough reason. It's ok to have some kinds of mandates. I don't want my tax dollars going to pay EMS and police to shovel your remains off the highway because you wanted to drive like an idiot.
    • mindslight 2y ago
      This has got to be the absolute worst argument in favor of seatbelts, and will only ever amount to preaching to the authoritarian choir. For everyone else your argument actually serves to undermine support for public services like first responders - if the societal cost of such services includes the legislating of personal behavior simply to keep the financial cost of said services down, perhaps the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
      • burnte 2y ago
        I really don't care, frankly. I'm just tired of grown adults stamping their feet and yelling "Idawanna!"
        • mindslight 2y ago
          Well the harder you push your personal choices as a prescriptive agenda, the more people are going to stamp their feet and yell "Idawanna!". There are plenty of things like this that seriously affect other people (eg that whole mask thing), so I'd recommend spending your credibility on those rather than burning it on things with a tiny blast radius.
• peter_l_downs 2y ago
  Most professional cabinetmaker shops are terribly mismanaged and incredibly behind the times. The industry is consolidating as the owners are aging out. Mostly they’re just straight up closing shop because they have no succession plan, terrible workplace habits, and mismanaged finances. The proposed regulation will “harm” this type of shop but any cabinetmaking business that _will_ exist in ~10 years already uses saws with these types of safety features (and equivalently “safe” practices when it comes to things like ventilating their finishing area.)
• avar 2y ago
  It's really not analogous to seatbelts. It's really simple to use a table saw safely: don't ever get physically close enough (by far!) for the spinning blade to cut you, or stand where it can fling something at you. Then even if there's no riving knife and blade guard it's not going to ruin your day. This means that you'll sometimes need to build a small jig to push wood into the saw, but usually you can just use a long stick to push the wood into it. Every single table saw accident video you'll see is people who've clearly become way too complacent with them, or are trying to save themselves a few minutes of setup time.
  • the__alchemist 2y ago
    They're holding it wrong?
  • ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    It's simple to use a car safely too. Don't ever speed, be aware of your surroundings at all times, and practice defensive driving. In theory. As someone who has used a table saw, you simply cannot account for every variable factored in to having a 10" piece of sharpened carbide steel spinning at 5,000 RPMs and shoving a piece of probably inconsistently structured building materials through it, many, many, many times to accomplish a job. Maybe the sawmill left a nail in there for you: shit happens. In the immortal words of Jean Luc Picard: It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That's why we build things with safety features: to manage those risks.
    • avar 2y ago
      No it's not. Even if you're the best defensive driver in the world a seatbelt might still save you if someone plows into you while you're stopped at a red light.
      • cm2187 2y ago
        But again, it's your life, your body, your choice.
• poulsbohemian 2y ago
  I think there are lots of people who would like to see this technology expanded. The issues going back more than a decade has been over the licensing of the patents. SawStop spent a lot of years aggressively suing over its IP and/or pushing for this legislation so that they could have regulatory capture. That's the problem, not the concept of safety. Maybe things have changed by now and we'll be able to see greater innovation in this space.
  • Red_Leaves_Flyy 2y ago
    Weren’t the seatbelt and insulin famously given away? The people who own Sawstop IP are greedy people who have the blood, lost appendages, and deaths of a nearly countless number of people on their greedy shoulders. Absolutely shameless behavior. I won’t sit here and say I have the solution; but this status quo is undeniably bad. Unchecked capitalism like this makes want me to vomit. Think of how many people would be living a better life if every table saw had this technology mandated by law for the past decade. Really think about it.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • poulsbohemian 2y ago
      It's certainly an interesting problem to examine... my understanding was always that patents were designed to foster innovation by giving an inventor a way to make money on their IP so long as they gave the idea to the world. Somewhere along the way that got weaponized. So is the solution that we need to reform patents, or do we need some other way to both allow innovators to make money but in a way that doesn't exploit other parties trying to expand the footprint of a good idea? It's complicated.
    • bdowling 2y ago
      This is a bizarre take because if not for SawStop, many, many more people would have lost blood, appendages, and lives to conventional table saws. In fact, SawStop the company only exists because 20 years ago every table saw manufacturer refused to license the technology from the inventor. None of them wanted it at any price because it would increase the cost of their saws and reduce their profits.
• hilbert42 2y ago
  "These tools are dangerous and table saws cause upwards of 30k injures a year." Right. I hate the damn things and they've always scared the shit out of me whenever I use them. I've not been seriously injured yet but I've come damn close. Fortunately, I don't have one at present as someone stole my one during a factory move. I view this as good fortune for eventually I'll have to replace it and I'll do so with one with SawStop-like safety features. I cannot understand what all the fuss and objections are about, yes SawStop-type saws are more expensive but their cost simply pales into insignificace the moment one's fingers go walkabout. People are mad to say one can always use table saws safely. That may be the case for 99.99% of the time but it's the unexpected rare event that bites even the most seasoned professionals. Table saws and their related brethren table routers are by design intrinsically unsafe, and this ought to be damn obvious to both Blind Freddy and the Village Idiot. Frankly there's something perverse about those who consider table saws safe to use, alternatively they've misguided bravado and or they lack common sense. Redesigning them to be intrinsically save just makes common sense, and in the long run will cost society much less (as amputations are enormously expensive per capita and it all adds up). Edit: to those down-voters, I've a longtime friend who is one of the most meticulous and careful workers that I know (much more so than I am). Moreover, that planned thinking extends to the work he turns out, it's nothing but the finest quality. He's been around power tools all his life and I first observed him using table saws and routers over 40 years ago. That said, about four years ago he was seriously injured when using a table router. Injuries to his hand were so severe that he has lost almost all of the dexterity in his hand, even now after many operations and ongoing professional physiotherapy, he has only regained partial use of his hand. Perhaps the skeptics need to meet people like him and just see the negative impact such injuries have had on their lives.
  • cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
    There’s a certain sort of delusional self-identified genius that loves the idea of there being something that most people can’t do safely, that they can, because they simply know to be safe, whereas these other idiots do not. It’s like if you took the “C is safe, humans are not!” crowd and gave them something that caused amputations instead of buffer overflows.
• mixmastamyk 2y ago
  I recommend the movie "Walk the Line" for folks on the fence. Entertaining and might learn a thing or two.
• RecycledEle 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
    I genuinely can’t tell if this is satire or not. Like, I know that this is something people will often say as an unoriginal attempt at a humorous reply, but I am…genuinely unsure.
    • wredcoll 2y ago
      A phenomon frequently called Poe's law! And I too am confused although given the context, I'm thinking "serious"
• lovich 2y ago
  [flagged]
• eth0up 2y ago
  I've always thought seatbelts should be mandatory on motorcycles. Ain't had one in ages, but I still wear my helmet wherever I go. Never can have too many laws. Authority always knows best. I luv u hackernews. Long live the eggheads! Future Headline: Man sent to glorious and compassionate American prison for not using riving knife gets shanked to death with one days before parole. Future Hackernews Post with 10k upvotes and gushing comments: How the judicial system is creating strong Americans and healing millions - and how silicon valley has assisted
  • cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
    If you had a legitimate point to make you wouldn’t resort to blatantly and intentionally absurd faux-analogies that don’t even pretend to seek to pose a fair comparison. This is childish. Though looking at your profile you seem to wear being unlikeable and hostile as some sort of badge of pride.
    • eth0up 2y ago
      [flagged]
  • dang 2y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait and otherwise breaking the site guidelines? If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules, we'd appreciate it. Note this one: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
• sharperguy 2y ago
  A seatbelt is a small fraction of the total cost of a car. I wouldn't be surprised if a table saw with this feature is 10x the cost of one without it or more. It adds a ton of complexity to a fairly simple tool.
  • BWStearns 2y ago
    It's closer to 2x the cost but that's a fairly fat margin since the Sawstop models ate the whole upper end. With a competitor they could probably get down to 1.5x.
  • dfc 2y ago
    I have good news for you and your fingers. This will not increase the price of your next table saw by 10x.
  • mey 2y ago
    At scale the cost will come down. The actual tech is remarkably simple (which is a compliment to the design and engineering). The saw blade is wired up in such a way that it becomes a capactive touch sensor. When tripped a sacrifical brake is blasted into the blade that causes it stop and drop into the table. It isn't going to cost 10x. https://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop/the-technology/ https://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop/the-technology/
    • nostromo 2y ago
      It's expensive because of the patent holders, not the technical complexity.
      • xdennis 2y ago
        When the government mandates it there's no reason not to increase the price, just like how college tuitions rose exponentially when the government guaranteed the loans.
    • petee 2y ago
      The modules are expensive, and it destroys the blade, which can be very expensive when using real industrial ones meant to be resharpened. Personally I've had a very poor experience using a sawstop, as well as witnessing it cause younger guys to get overly confident
• wolverine876 2y ago
  There's also the knee-jerk anti-reguation crowd. Consider this comment from the article: "If it's mandated, you're going to have people hanging on to their old saws forever," Juntunen says. "And, you know, that's when I'd say there will be more injuries on an old saw." Does the mandate in any way change the functionality of a new saw (other than for cutting flesh)?
  • dfc 2y ago
    It does make ripping pressure treated wood a little dicey. Whenever I have to cut wood that is wet I will disable the flesh detection feature temporarily. That's a minor inconvenience though. I will never go back to a saw without the feature.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• ipqk 2y ago
  I started taking a beginner woodworking class which actually had a bit of a waitlist to it. After the first day (all safety), I decided it wasn't worth it for just a minor hobby. Improved safety gear may have changed my mind.
  • RoyalHenOil 2y ago
    I would recommend learning only one new tool at a time, rather than a suite of tools. It will be less onerous and scary learning the safety practices, and you will be far less likely to slip up. (Plus, it's more affordable to only buy a new tool as you need it.) Also, some tools are a whole lot safer than others. Tools that carry a risk of flinging your project (such as table saws and lathes) are risky, but a lot of other tools (such as jig saws and tracks saws) are very unlikely to cause serious injury. And, of course, you can do without power tools altogether. People have used hand tools exclusively for the vast majority of the history of woodworking, and many people today still primarily use hand tools because they are more precise, safer, and often easier to use (albeit slower).
    • ifyoubuildit 2y ago
      Maybe a little safer, but you can do plenty of damage with hand tools. I haven't had any serious injuries with power tools or hand tools (knock on wood), but I have knicked myself pretty good with a chisel.
      • RoyalHenOil 2y ago
        True, a chisel or a gouge can get you pretty good. I think you are still far less likely to suffer a table-saw-level injury, however.
  • TheCleric 2y ago
    I would recommend getting started with hand (non-power) tools. You can still make amazing things (see Paul Sellers) at a much lower risk profile.
• gentleman11 2y ago
  The government is passing a law that says only company x make saws, due to various patents making it unrealistic to make your own design. They’re outlawing competition. Unless every relevant patent is opened up, this is extreme regulatory capture and is going to be a price gouging patent licensing circus after it passes
  • wvenable 2y ago
    Yeah this needs to be met with invalidation of patents. If the government mandates something, it has to be possible without patent infringement.
    • ip26 2y ago
      Commonly there would be a requirement to license the patent, rather than striking it down for the crime of being indispensable.
      • InvertedRhodium 2y ago
        If they applied FRAND requirements to it, then I could see that working. So long as it's just a license for the patent holder to extort other companies I can't support it at all.
      • avidphantasm 2y ago
        Give SawStop $10B and seize the patents under eminent domain.
    • refurb 2y ago
      Jesus that would certainly kill any future innovation. “Hey if your product is so good that absolutely everyone needs to have it we’ll make sure you get no financial reward for developing it”
  • alphazard 2y ago
    Yeah this guy gets it. Regardless of your stance on whether the government should regulate x or y, it's important to understand that the people driving this law do not care about you or your fingers. This is rent seeking; someone who makes safe saws wants to sell more of their saws, and they compete with people who sell less safe saws. They are using the legal system to benefit their own bottom line. After the real goal is established, reasons like "think of the children" or "think of the fingers" can be fabricated.
• grep_name 2y ago
  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.
  • QuarterReptile 2y ago
    FWIW, I supervised in one of the safest industrial environments in the US, and also one with incredibly robust workman comp. The 18-25 year olds I supervised typically just found ever stupider ways to get themselves hurt or accumulate improper- or over-use injuries... Arguably we would just fire them before they got us in trouble, which we didn't, but neither do people in much riskier settings I've heard from ("get these stupid safety railings uninstalled once the inspector is gone, they just waste time and get in the way"). My suspicion is that the better analogy for these things is airbags rather than seatbelts. Because people don't use seatbelts (guards), install something expensive that can't be easily defeated, airbags (sawstops), which are touchy and known to brick the car (saw). Do sawstops, when not engaging, inhibit the function of the saw as badly as airbags inhibit visibility around A pillars?
• Eridrus 2y ago
  If we're going to do a cost benefit analysis, we need to be pretty certain that the costs do in fact outweigh the benefits. We have hobbled Nuclear power over safety concerns and it's pretty clear we got that one completely wrong with huge negative consequences for society. This is obviously not on the same scale, but it's easy to get these things wrong and never revisit them. From the federal register notice on this, 70% of the supposed societal cost is pain and suffering, which frankly, individuals can decide on for themselves about the risks. If you take out the pain and suffering values from these costs, you actually find that the cost benefit analysis doesn't pass at all, coming in at 0.5bn to 3.4bn in the red depending on the cost of the regulation on consumers, per the agency's own analysis. If you got and read what people think about these regulations about people who use the tools, e.g. on /r/tools, they are unanimously opposed to them. Many people have complaints about the proposed products not working as advertised and generally wanting to bypass the system entirely: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/19fmzko/are_you_in_f https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/19fmzko/are_you_in_f... And that gets to the other part of this issue, if the regulation passes, what is the actual behavior change that will happen? Will people buy these saws and use them in the intended manner, or will they switch to alternatives that are just as dangerous, or will they simply turn off the safety features because the false positives are expensive ($100+ in direct costs without counting productivity losses). And note: all the SawStop products have off switches for the safety because they have false positives on wet wood and conductive materials like aluminum. The headlines for these regulations are always great since nobody likes losing fingers, but there are always trade-offs, and it is extremely easy to make mistakes in these calculations and not foresee the actual knock on effects of them. Particularly in this case where costs are largely internalized, rather than externalized.
• jamestimmins 2y ago
  Hah either we have know the same carpenter or a lot of pros have lost the top half of three fingers via jointers.
  • Tagbert 2y ago
    my grandfather only lost one finger tip to a joiner. My father had two fingers pretty well mangled by a table saw. I used to do some carpentry but have lost interest in the last couple of decades. What really scares me are band saws!
    • greedo 2y ago
      Band saws are scary, but actually quite safe in comparison to table saws or radial arm saws.
      • TheCleric 2y ago
        Yeah I wouldn’t use a radial arm saw if you paid me. A friend had one he wasn’t using in his garage he offered to give me and I politely passed.
        • Teever 2y ago
          I've never really used a radial arm saw. What's so dangerous about it compared to the other shop tools talked about in this thread?
          • TheCleric 2y ago
            A table saw is a fixed position blade you feed wood into. A radial arm saw is a moving blade and the wood is stationary. Some of the cuts can involve pointing the blade directly at parts of your body, and then moving it without cutting yourself. A fixed blade is safer since you can try to avoid being in the blade area, but if the blade area is dynamic that becomes much more difficult. A good video with examples (of pictures of recommended cuts, not injuries) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Zeg8fHVrJBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Zeg8fHVrJBk A good example is at 1:20 of the video.
• m463 2y ago
  > against seatbelts I've been wondering about this kind of thing recently. I think people struggle all their lives with independence, and it is wonderful when you get the feeling of being "sovereign". Being your own man (or woman), confident in who you are and what you can do. And then we run into forces bigger than us, and some people continue to defend their sovereignty. They want their freedom and they don't want to be told what to do. (For me, I hate things like companies that want to LOG IN to my bank account to verify my income/etc and will never give up that fight. for someone else it might be seatbelts. I wasn't really aware of the seatbelt fight, but I remember helmet laws. My position was that I would wear a helmet, but I wouldn't want to force someone else to wear one. ... on the other hand, I think it is ok to make kids wear helmets.
• jjav 2y ago
  > Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. That is not a representative analogy. Imagine if in the 50s there was only one company that manufactured seatbelts and they owned every imaginable patent related to preventing car occupants from hitting surfaces in an accident (so another company couldn't for example invent the airbag because they'd block that too - see Bosch and a completely different implementation that Saw Stop sued out of the market). Improved safety would be great, but legislation should never mandate a monopoly to a single manufacturer.
  • dennyabraham 2y ago
    SawStop actually granted Bosch a license to their safety patents for Reaxx some time ago. Moreover, they said during the hearing that they'd offer permissive public licensing to their remaining patents should this rule be made effective.
    • jjav 2y ago
      They said, sure. Saw Stop has been such a toxic bad actor around their patents since forever, they don't get any benefit of doubt. I'm certain they'd just back down from that promise as soon as the law passes. How about they make all their patents public domain beforehand, to motivate passing the law (and I'd that point I'd be happy to support the law). And imagine if this law passes and Saw Stop has monopoly on table saws. Sure, today you can buy one for $900 but nothing will prevent them from raising that to like $5000 when nobody else is allowed to build a table saw.
      • wredcoll 2y ago
        You do have some kind of proof for this wild accusation.. right?
      • kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        Saw Stop's original patents are expiring. Reaxx will come back on the market and there will be a superior alternative that doesn't self-destruct. Saw Stop defending their patents during their period of exclusivity is the entire point of the patent system. There is no reason to vilify them for it when they used it to launch a successful business.
• sheepscreek 2y ago
  I don’t think the congress intends on prescribing the particular technology in use to accomplish this. That, would be a bad idea. They should set the goals (what constraints are acceptable in the name of making this technology affordable). If it is being left up to the manufacturer, then half the arguments being mentioned here are moot. Other manufacturers are free to get creative about it. I can think of a few different ways myself - even something like assisted manoeuvring of the wood piece without direct contact of the hand, a retractable shield, etc.
• lightedman 2y ago
  "Everyone's talking about how this will kill the industry." Because we know the mechanism behind the thing, and it's essentially unavoidable to trip because the lumber industry continues to sell still-wet wood. Until you put that industry firmly in its place, people are just going to be losing tons of money on 'safer' saws via constantly having to replace blades as the stop mechanism breaks them. And then we break out the handheld circular saw without that bullshit and go back to work.
• JackFr 2y ago
  > Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off? They are able, and they’re choosing not to. So SawStop is wisely spending marketing money on lobbying. If people don’t want to buy your product, nothing better than forcing them to.
• whatshisface 2y ago
  Seatbelts are a legal requirement because my car insurance would have to pay for your medical bills if not wearing a seatbelt turned my failure to stop from a minor accident into a serious head injury. In other words, your lack of a seatbelt affects my liability. There is no analogy between that and safety devices for uninsured activities carried out alone, in our own homes.
  • stuaxo 2y ago
    This isn't the case in most countries, seatbelts did become a legal requirement though.
  • tristan957 2y ago
    Thanks for this logic. It makes sense to me.
• golergka 2y ago
  > Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. So many people are certain it won't happen to them. Please don't mix up "being against something" and "being against legislation that forces people into something". You can support the thing, do the thing yourself, advice all of your friends and family to do the thing, and still believe that people should have the freedom not to do the thing, even if you think this decision would be extremely stupid.
• Aurornis 2y ago
  > Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today Woodworker here. The equivalent SawStop to my basic table saw is 3X the price. Your analogy wouldn’t make sense unless seatbelts tripled the price of cars. SawStop has a huge patent portfolio and they’ve been cagey about actually letting other people use the full system. This is more of a regulatory capture play, not a safety play with consumers in mind.
  • ajhurliman 2y ago
    [flagged]
• thsksbd 2y ago
  "Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. " Those of us who ride motorcycles?
• freddie_mercury 2y ago
  I live in a poor, developing country where seat belts aren't mandatory. Also most people get around on scooters going 25-30mph and helmet laws are almost completely unenforced. I am constantly amazed at the number of foreigners from first world countries who don't wear seatbelts or helmets the moment there is no Big Brother forcing them to. Road fatality rates are 10x what they are in Germany, Japan, Ireland. 9x what they are in Australia. Until this year drunk driving laws were unenforced and drunk driving was widespread.
• starfleet_bop 2y ago
  Ironic how seatbelts aren’t mandated on public forms of transport like trains and buses, yet one is required to wear them in one’s own vehicle. If it truly is based on safety then it should be an all or nothing approach to requiring seat belts on moving vehicles.
  • QuarterReptile 2y ago
    Transit has the same advantage as a back seat of private auto: a big non-windshield to crash into in the event of a crash. seatbelts are pretty great. the proliferation of airbags is the correct comparison.
    • starfleet_bop 2y ago
      I think smashing into the back of a seat will probably do as much damage as a windshield if not more.
      • nick238 2y ago
        The mass of a bus or train will happily cleave through wayward objects, so there will be less acceleration of your face into seat backs, poles, and other passengers. School busses to my knowledge do have padded seat backs, plus they're also up high, so they're more likely to go over sudden obstacles, increasing the stopping distance.
• jaredhallen 2y ago
  While I can agree that tablesaws are quite dangerous, I just don't understand how we get from: "tablesaws are dangerous" to "the government should regulate tablesaws." There are safer saws out there. Sawstop. Buy one. No governmental intervention needed.
• jaredhallen 2y ago
  [dupe]
  • lathiat 2y ago
    You're a young apprentice working at a shop who is too cheap to purchase those safety devices for their employees. What do they do?
• oceanplexian 2y ago
  I am against seatbelt laws, so you got me there. I grew up as a proud resident of New Hampshire which has no such law on the books despite being one of the safest states to drive in the USA. Motorcycles are legal so why shouldn’t driving alone without a seatbelt? Perfect example of government overreach as cars get loaded with nanny state technology. I subscribe to the philosophy of personal responsibility, something that seems to have been lost in the modern litigious, it’s everyone-else’s-fault culture of the 21st century.
  • kobieps 2y ago
    Well written. I don't know why responsibility is so scary. I've never used a table saw but I rock climb regularly which has plenty of risk. Are table saw accidents purely due to your own actions? Or is it like a motorbike where there are factors out of your control and someone could crash into you. If losing your fingers on a table saw is 100% due to your own actions and there are no externalities, I would call that negligence not accident.
    • romwell 2y ago
      >Well written. I don't know why responsibility is so scary. Sure! I'm withyou! People who buy table saws with a failsafe mechanism should not be fined for not using the failsafe or disabling it. ...selling the table saw without that mechanism should be, however, banned - just like cars without seatbelts or airbags aren't legal to sell in New Hampshire (or any other US state).
  • bokoharambe 2y ago
    Personal responsibility is a hard sell in a world where human beings are not absolutely sovereign agents. Regardless, the law isn't stopping you from driving without a seatbelt. I find it odd that you have such a visceral response to a class of laws that is violated quite regularly.
  • longdustytrail 2y ago
    In the jargon of philosophy this a friction point between Deontology (rules-based ethics) and Consequentialism (outcome-based ethics). Deontologically there is a strong case against seatbelt laws, but the consequentialist perspective is rather compelling. I’m generally a deontologist but find myself supporting the seatbelt law. It’s just such a small price to pay when stacked up against the consequences. I guess that means I’m not really a deontologist.
• johnp314 2y ago
  Can't all these many people who want the technology purchase it today? I think for every new hobbyist that comes along only because of this saw there will be five less hobbyists who stay away because of cost.
• jalapenos 2y ago
  Mischaracterizing the issue, which is people handing over (or having taken from them) responsibility, to the state, for something they should be taking responsibility for. No chance your father or your joiner friend hadn't seen those ads of the saws which automatically stop on contact. But they chose not to buy one, because they decided they didn't need one. They had that choice. Or if before those existed, to use a hand saw. Regulation is nothing more than saying "we're superior to you in making choices for you, so we'll do so". And it's made not by efficient innovative geniuses, but by the same people who run the DMV. And it's not imposed on children by parents, it's on grown adults by other grown adults with no legal accountability. And it ossifies technology by locking in certain measures which will quickly drift out of date. And, as we've seen with the FDA and Opioids, it gives a get out of jail free card to wrongdoers who game the rules, because they can point to their compliance and say "so look, we followed the rules, we shouldn't be liable". It's just unbelievable people think regulation is in any way a good thing.
  • Someone 2y ago
    > which is people handing over (or having taken from them) responsibility, to the state, for something they should be taking responsibility for. > It's just unbelievable people think regulation is in any way a good thing. In general, there are many cases that most people cannot really take responsibility for. For example, if you hit a person with a car that can mean they’ll lose their income and need specialized care for decades. Such costs can run in the millions. Now, you can argue people should take insurance against that risk. Problem is: some people won’t, and victims won’t be compensated,. If, then, you think the state should take on those costs, doesn’t the state have a say in what kinds of cars you can drive, for example that they have various safety features? Also, this doesn’t only apply to cases where you injury others. If people get into an accident that leaves them with health costs they can’t afford to pay, we expect society to, at least partly pay up. I think that argument applies here, too. Saw accidents can and do make lots of persons lose health and future income. In many cases, it’s the state that will have to pay up to cover that.
  • partitioned 2y ago
    Ah yes a reply that is in no way doing any mischaracterizing itself. Great job!
• jeramey 2y ago
  I am a hobbyist carpenter and woodworker. My current project is probably the last one I will ever do without a table saw with these kinds of safety features. I have already changed over to using other tools like track saws and pull saws as much as I can for safety, but it is still hard to replace a well-calibrated table saw for certain tasks. My table saw is the only power tool I have that truly frightens me. Router tables and jointers can cause some nasty injuries as well, and I treat them with much respect, but total digit and limb loss is rarer with them. The patent situation and much higher price are unfortunate, but it’s still a cost I am willing to bear. It’s cheap insurance compared to an ER visit and extended amounts of time spent feeling pain.
• marssaxman 2y ago
  Opposition to a law mandating the use of certain safety equipment is not the same thing as opposition to the safety equipment. Here in Seattle, there used to be a bicycle helmet law. Helmets reduce the severity of injury in a crash, less severe injuries are obviously better, forcing people to run less risk is therefore justifiable: it seemed to make sense, and it was a popular law. And yet, it was repealed. Why? Disproportional enforcement, partially - tickets were inevitably handed out primarily to poorer and more marginalized people - but the law actually made things worse for everyone by reducing the total number of riders on the road. There is safety in numbers for bicyclists, who are less likely to be hit by motorists when they are a more common sight - but the health benefit expected from riding a bicycle at all, helmet or no, is actually greater than the health benefit expected by adding a helmet. It is therefore better, both collectively and individually, if we remove every possible barrier to bicycle riding, even though some people will choose not to ride as safely as we wish they might. Unintended consequences are a real thing, so a person can quite reasonably believe that the SawStop is a great invention which everyone should use, and that a law mandating the use of SawStop would be a bad idea.
• injb 2y ago
  >> Ever think of how many more people would be willing to buy a table saw if they knew they weren't going to cut their fingers off? There is literally nothing stopping those people from buying the saw that prevents that right now.
• alex_lav 2y ago
  > Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today. Where have you been for the past 4 years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain_Award
• ssl-3 2y ago
  When Volvo created the three-point safety belt (still in use today), they patented their invention. And then, recognizing the importance of this great improvement in safety, they absolutely gave it away for free. When SawStop created a meat-detecting brake for table saws, they patented their invention. And then, they refused to give it away, sued the begeezus out of anyone who tried to emulate their patented inventions, and eventually paid lip-service to the concept by offering to license one aspect of it for free. Can you spot the difference?
• whatamidoingyo 2y ago
  You know, I recently bought a table saw. Reading this makes me terrified to use it.