The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says it costs the United States $35,000 every time someone is injured on a table saw, accounting for medical treatment, lost time from work, product liability and litigation, and human pain and suffering, so the CPSC is working to implement tighter safety standards for the common contractor tool.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says it costs the United States $35,000 every time someone is injured on a table saw, accounting for medical treatment, lost time from work, product liability and litigation, and human pain and suffering, so the CPSC is working to implement tighter safety standards for the common contractor tool.
Most table saw operators who injured themselves removed the blade guard for operational convenience, according to a CPSC study conducted from 2007 to 2008 that looked at 66,900 "blade contact injuries." For that reason, CPSC is considering requiring that table saws come with a safety brake like the one offered on SawStop contractor and cabinet table saws, according to NPR. Within three-thousandths of a second of contacting human skin, the brake fires and the blade drops down into the table, preventing injury.
NPR reported that, for the most part, other table saw manufacturers-including Black & Decker, Ryobi, Bosch and many others-have resisted adopting SawStop technology for years, instead trying to improve saw guards.
"We think the limitations of that technology have been evident in all the table saw injuries that we see each year," said Caroleene Paul, an engineer with CPSC, at a hearing Wednesday.
However, cost is the main sticking point for requiring a blade brake like SawStop on every table saw sold in the U.S.-most manufacturers say it would add $100 to $200 to the price of a new table saw.
CPSC recently recommended publishing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register, the first step to making the law. After that, public comment is sought before crafting a Final Rule.
CPSC is an independent federal agency charged with "protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products," according to its website. The agency was created in 1972 through the Consumer Product Safety Act.
