Table Saw Safety Rule being viewed by CPSC

http://www.machineking.com/table-saw-safety-rule-being-viewed-by-cpsc.html#31

WASHINGTON -- Table saw safety remains on the radar of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The CPSC held a May 25 meeting requested by the National Consumers League seeking a national mandatory table saw safety standard. Attendees included Adam Thull and Curtis Harper, hobbyist woodworkers who were injured in separate table saw accidents.

Also in attendance were Steve Gass and Dave Fanning of SawStop. Gass first petitioned the CPSC in 2003 to require that manufacturers use his SawStop table saw safety device on their products.

 Thull described how he was injured working on a table saw in his home workshop. He said he had removed the saw's blade guard because using it slowed down his work. the injury that he had suffered while working on a table saw in his home workshop. The injury has deprived Thull of motor skills in his right arm and resulted in multiple surgeries. He was forced to quit his job and go on public assistance.

Harper said he has suffered two separate injuries operating a table saw in his home. The more recent injury, which occurred while he was working on a home improvement project, resulted in the loss of a finger. Harper said he had removed the saw's blade guard because he was more fearful of a potential kick-back injury that he thought could be created from the use of the guard. He said he had reached this conclusion because he previously experienced a kick-back related injury that almost cost him the use of his thumb with the guard on the table saw.

Thull and Harper each said they had used table saws professionally. They further stated that neither manufacturer-installed nor after-market guards allowed for full functionality of a table saw and provided protection only 50 percent of the time at most. While both men told CPSC commissioners that they were aware of the SawStop technology, both stated that they were not there to endorse it, only to ask for some technology to provide better protection for table saw users than was currently available.

After thanking both presenters for sharing their stories, CPSC Commissioner Robert Adler said he agreed that table saws present a safety hazard. While noting that he also was not a champion for SawStop, he is interested in improving table saw safety as much as is technologically feasible at a cost that did not make the product prohibitive. He added that the CPSC is required undertake a cost/benefit analysis in any rulemaking process.

That said, Adler said he favored pursuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in order to receive public feedback on the issue. He noted that all the commissioners were equally concerned about consumer injuries and that this issue, in part because of the patents held by Gass, was a "particularly thorny one."

Many table saw manufacturers, plus the Power Tool Institute, have gone on record that they are concerned that SawStop could enjoy a monopoly if CPSC or other government agency mandates its use on table saws.

The renewed call for table saw safety, and potential for SawStop to be government specified, made national headlines in spring 2010 when a Boston jury awarded $1.5 million to a man whose hand was severely injured while operating a Ryobi saw. The plaintiff's legal team successfully convinced the jury that table saw design is “defective” and that their client’s injury could have been prevented if the saw had been outfitted with a safety device like the SawStop, which immediately brakes a blade if if comes into contact with skin.