Be careful out there

[Roger Marty]

A neighbor of mine came over to my house one morning, crying. She had backed into her garage door.

She had a routine when leaving the house and something threw her off and she didn't open the garage door. She continued her routine and backed into the closed garage door. She was not "stupid" or any other negative connotation. She was in a hurry, got distracted and was following a routine.

I went over to her house, was able to raise the garage door for her to leave, and since the garage door was a wooden door, I was able to repair the door.

Now, I'm sure she'll never make that mistake again. But she did once. Luckily her car was not really damaged, except for a scrape on the bumper, so she got off easy.

Mike

SawStop. I fully support Gass:

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542474...-safer-drag-on

[Chris Parks]

A doctor I know was doing some DYI woodwork and when he picked up the electric saw to retract the blade guard he put his hand under the saw and tried to pull it back that way instead of allowing it to automatically retract. The hand injuries he suffered were a talking point of his patients for quite some time.

[Bill Adamsen]

SawStop. I fully support Gass:

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542474...-safer-drag-on

Saw that article this morning as well ... the statistics are quite alarming.

[Pat Barry]

Saw that article this morning as well ... the statistics are quite alarming.

There are no statistics in that article. The one chart with some 'data' in it is titled "estimated table saw blade contact amputations 2005 - 2015". The 'data' indicates an increase in the number of amputations for the three most recent years. Presumably, those are the years on the chart that had the most Sawstop machines in use. Therefore, it indicates that Sawstop machine are not really affecting the number of amputations and may be leading to increased amputations (just look at the data). I hate misleading 'data' such as this. If the 'data' is 'estimated' then how or why do you believe any of it?

[Mike Henderson]

There are no statistics in that article. The one chart with some 'data' in it is titled "estimated table saw blade contact amputations 2005 - 2015". The 'data' indicates an increase in the number of amputations for the three most recent years. Presumably, those are the years on the chart that had the most Sawstop machines in use. Therefore, it indicates that Sawstop machine are not really affecting the number of amputations and may be leading to increased amputations (just look at the data). I hate misleading 'data' such as this. If the 'data' is 'estimated' then how or why do you believe any of it?

I can't say how they did the estimates for the data in the article but it's very common to estimate data based on sampling. The mathematics for doing that is very well developed. The problem - and where errors come in - is in how well the sample is selected. I expect that it is impossible to collect data on all table saw amputations so the authors are forced to estimate based on the data they have.

We know that there have been essentially no amputations on a SawStop - at least I've never heard of one and I assume if one happened it would have made news - so I'd assume that more amputations are happening on non-SawStop type saws. That could be because there are more non-SawStop saws out there, or there are more people working on non-SawStop saws, or some other reason.

So my analysis is (1) either the data are wrong, or (2) there are reasons unrelated to SawStop that there are more amputations on table saws.

But I think we can safely say that a significant number of table saw amputations occur each year and that leads to significant cost to both society and the individual, as well as significant disability for the individual after the amputation.

Mike