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Comment by randyrand | Hacker News Reader

Ya, no. Besides the horrendous patent issue (say goodbye to market competition), this will double the price of table saws. No thanks. Consumer protection laws are not about making obvious choices for me. Its supposed to protect me from the unknown unknowns - things that the average consumer would not know is dangerous. Everyone has heard about these safer saws for over a decade now. Everyone knows saws are dangerous. If people wanted them, they'd buy them. This law will not making these saws any cheaper or make saws any safer, it's just removing consumer choice.

This is a ban. This is not why we have consumer protection.

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In a (slightly more) rational society, we would recognize the health care costs [1] of all those saw victims, and divert a bit of money to equip all saws with this technology.

If it becomes mandatory I wouldn't want manufacturers and customers to pay more. You could cancel his patent, but I think why not let the inventor get his "reward". I would take the money for licenses and implementation from health and disability insurers.

Of course, our system is really bad in making these kind of sensible re-allocations, so that probably won't happen.

[1] + loss of life quality and future income

Table saws aren't in the same class as cars. Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the injury rate is pretty low. When an accident does happen it only involves a single person and usually requires a few stitches. The cost savings of avoiding a few thousand people needing stitches is not even close to the cost of "modernizing the table saw fleet.". Plus, saws already come with a plethora of safety features (anti-kickback pawls, blade guards, and riving knives), and most serious woodworkers take the safety features off.

In a rational society we would let people make their own choices. We can raise insurance raise rates on people who act dangerously, and disallow frivolous lawsuits from people that circumvent existing safety features. There is no need for the government to regulate table saws that only risk the individual using it.

> Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the injury rate is pretty low. When an accident does happen it only involves a single person and usually requires a few stitches.

4000 people a year suffer from being mangled by a table saw. That's losing digits or an appendage (their entire hand). (NPR had a story about this a week or two ago)

EDIT: Let's say, conservatively, each accident on average costs $100K in medical costs, disability, etc. That's $400 million/year in costs. Just a hunch, but adding the safety break seems like a clear win.

I suppose that's a perverse benefit of healthcare being so broken in America; its so expensive, its usually cheaper to fix the problem then to dump it on the healthcare system as an externality.

> NPR had a story about this a week or two ago

...this is that story.

>Just a hunch, but adding the safety break seems like a clear win.

Human behavior is counterintuitive and maybe the situation would be worse. See excerpt:

>Data supplied by SawStop concerning the number of table saw units sold and the number of reported blade contact incidences, proves that operators are nearly five times more likely to contact the saw blade of a SawStop saw as opposed to the operator of a conventional table saw. Logic dictates that this increase in accident rate on SawStop saws is due primarily to a user’s decision to use the blade guard less frequently due to a “sense of security” in having the SawStop flesh-sensing technology on the saw. [1]

The analysis above may be flawed and/or come from a self-serving biased source. Either way, it's similar to the famous thought experiment about seat belts in cars: Volvo's generosity in giving the world seat belts without patent encumbrances didn't make the world "safer". Instead, if governments mandated a sharp iron spike in the steering wheel pointing just a few centimeters short of every driver's heart, that would actually make us safer than seatbelts.[2] It may have been tongue-in-cheek but it may also be true.

In my case when I researched saws, I seriously looked at SawStop and valued its flesh detection safety but ultimately preferred a European style sliding saw[3] that doesn't have the flesh detector. In my opinion, a sliding saw without the blade stop is "safer" overall than a SawStop. Of course, it would be nice if all saws had SawStop technology but if I had to choose among tradeoffs, I'd go with the sliding saw. The drawback is that it's more expensive.

Where there SawStop technology is more non-negotiable is the portable jobsite saw. A contractor can't transport the giant footprint of a sliding saw into a truck and then into a customer's house remodeling jobsite. Therefore, you want a portable saw with all the safety features possible.

[1] http://www.powertoolinstitute.com/pti-pages/it-table-saw-fac...

[2] http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2008/08/spikes-and-steering-w...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=european+sliding+saw&source=...

The idea that we'd all be safer if we had a spike on our steering wheel is ludicrous. Traffic fatality rates have dropped dramatically over the past few decades, and much of that can be attributed to safety technology.

There is merit in the argument that people behave more dangerously in the presence of safety equipment. But there's no reason to think it's so extreme that it overwhelms the positive contribution of the safety technology.

> Traffic fatality rates have dropped dramatically over the past few decades, and much of that can be attributed to safety technology.

Yes that is true but it's not relevant to the idea that an alternate universe with different conditions could be safer than seat belts. If one truly engaged with the thought experiment, you'd have to try to imagine all side effects of the "ludicrous" spike. E.g. drivers no longer tailgate at 70mph -- in fact, they may drive under the speedlimit of 55mph. Instead of whizzing through the neighborhood at 40mph, they drive less than 20mph because any random squirrel running into street would trigger a reaction to hit the brakes which causes the heart to be pierced. Maybe less parents would let their kids have a drivers license at age 16 and instead make them wait until age 18 because of an iron spike pointing at their kids chest would keep them up at night. (That's 2 years less of teen driving fatalities right there.)

There may be all sorts of hard-to-imagine secondary effects that would lead to less deaths than seat belts. That's the idea of truly playing with that thought experiment. It doesn't mean we'd ever realistically implement that idea.

My point is that he hypothetical was really close to being real back before the 1970s or so. No seat belts and solid steering columns meant you'd die pretty easily. It didn't make people drive substantially more carefully.

It is posssible that the slope of the curve dramatically reverses sometime between "no seat belts and stiff steering columns" and "literal spike in the middle of the steering wheel" but that seems unlikely and there's no reason to think that would happen.

>hypothetical was really close to being real back before the 1970s or so.

Our perceptions differ then because when I drove an old Plymouth without seat belts, I didn't drive it as gingerly as driving a modern car today with a birthday cake in the front seat. A literal steel spike into the heart would make me more cautious than worrying about a birthday cake slamming into the dashboard. The Plymouth's steering column never gave me the feeling of impending death but a literal spike would. I think that sharp point on the end as a constant reminder really matters for the thought experiment.

Forgive my lack of knowledge, but what's the difference between a European sliding saw and a table saw with a sled?

In the video[1], you can see the operator walking with the sled to rip a large panel. A cross cut sled on a traditional Powermatic/Delta/SawStop doesn't have the same capacity and the operator ends up standing in front of the saw and bending his hip to push the sled into the blade. The geometry of motion is different. With a sliding saw, you're mostly out of the line of fire of kickbacks.

(The saw in the video is $40k but you can get used sliding saws for $5k which is about the price of a brand new SawStop Industrial saw.)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYUss6pJqQ&feature=youtu.be...

Seems good for a commercial application or a large volume hobbyist. Actually, not too different from what they seem to use at the hardware store for their cuts.

But, what about the small scale home hobbyist that can't dedicate a huge space to their table saw (and has a budget under $1k).

>Actually, not too different from what they seem to use at the hardware store for their cuts.

At the hardware stores I visit like Lowes & Home Depot, I see vertical panel saws which is a different beast: https://www.google.com/search?q=powermatic+panel+saw&source=...

The blade moves on tracks and the wood is stationary for cross cuts. Euro-style sliding table saw is the opposite of that.

For rip cuts, yes, the operator locks down the saw position and then pushes the wood through the blade. The issue with the vertical panel saw is that the top half of the rip cut wants to close the gap and bind the blade because of gravity. The horizontal surface of the the Euro slider doesn't have that issue.

>But, what about the small scale home hobbyist that can't dedicate a huge space to their table saw (and has a budget under $1k).

I would say make a stretch and pay $299 more to get the cheapest SawStop which is the $1299 portable jobsite saw: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/11697127655919696780

A tracksaw (Festool is a good brand) is a better alternative than most table saws, at least for cutting down sheet goods. Combine it with a chop saw and you've covered a lot of the use cases for a table saw.

So, it's a circular saw that can optionally ride on a long and straight metal track that clamps to your wood. I have rigged up things like that with 2x4s in the past.

Hadn't seen it as an actual product before, but much more convenient this way, which makes it more likely to get used. Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts; but, seems like it would work well for the occasional need.

I might just replace my cheap/scary table saw with one of these the next time I build something. Thanks.

>Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts;

You can do repeated identical cuts if you buy extra accessories for the tracksaw.[1] (I assume we're talking about "repeated cuts" using stops instead of constantly re-measuring with a ruler.) The parallel guides work ok but it's a lot more work to set up and dynamically adjust widths than a table saw's sliding fence.

If you like to use table saws to cut dados, rabbets, and slots for box/drawer joints, a tracksaw isn't as useful for that. Might have to get a router for those cuts in addition to the miter saw when supplementing a tracksaw.

[1] example: http://www.festoolproducts.com/festool-57000023-parallel-gui...

What about employees or students who have to use the equipment? They can't force their employer or educator to spend the money, but it's their fingers that'll be lost.

Maybe laws to ensure that if you are employing or in any way requiring someone use your saw you need the safety features.

The patent stuff is it's own issue for sure, and yet another example of how crappy the system is.

AFAIK schools already have these because they're pocket change to a school budget and students are notoriously dumb. It makes sense. So perhaps, we can think about a law but we should first evaluate if it is necessary. I can agree with the sentiment.

As TFA discusses, this certainly wasn't the case in 2013 when Mr. Ward had his hand destroyed in a high school shop. This technology had already been available for a decade at that point. Anyway the fact that a $400 machine has this feature doesn't mean that big multi-user shops can spend $400 and get it. Cheap table saws are made very cheaply, and are much less useful than $2000-and-up table saws. (More expensive/better built saws also last much longer than cheap saws.) Are there really public schools that wouldn't notice lots of additional spending?

Lots of additional spending? We're talking about one saw per district, a saw meant to last years. If they can't shift the budget to work in a one time purchase of a single tablesaw, in exchange for the safety of hundreds of woodshop students, that's on them. Most equipment in a school woodshop lasts multiple decades.

That said, many school districts already have made the switch. My high school already had a Sawstop by the time I first took a woodshop class in 2006, and it had already stopped multiple students from losing fingers.

Everything is relative, of course. It's likely that not all public schools have the same enrollment or tax base that yours had. At some point the number of public school shops without this technology will be low enough that an ethical company like Bosch could just give all the poor schools a new table saw. That seems less involved than the lobbying efforts described in TFA.

just make injury insurance mandatory for tools like this in institutions, and have lower premium for safe tools.

Same could be done for guns.

Insurance is after the fact. Won't prevent you from losing your fingers.

To state the obvious, a consolation prize to someone who loses a finger isn't the point. Rather the purpose of said proposed legislation would be to incentivise rational economic actors to purchase safer machines. Assuming the premium discounts were greater than the added cost of the "safe stop" technology amortized over the lifespan of the machine, they would. Either that or go out of business, further automate production, move shop to Mexico, etc.

The point is that any insurance company asked to provide a policy for table saws would mandate this technology for any saws it covers. Same way we got UL (underwriters laboratories!) listed electrical equipment.

It's both. Having to pay increased premiums if you put someone in danger means your more likely to buy safer tools in the first place.

insurance offers discount for car alarms and lo jack, and that drives purchase of those items.

"CPSC commissioners in favor of the rule point out that the $200 price difference is dwarfed by the financial cost, and pain and harm caused by 30,000 ER visits and more than 4,000 amputations every year. CPSC's analysis puts the annual cost of table saw accidents at around $4 billion."

Yet it would be cheaper overall.

Negative externalities? What's that?

One level of critical thought too far, apparently.

Everyone isn't quite accurate; do they sell and advertise saws with this at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. where most people buy their power tools? I also think that thinking this will remove consumer choice is inaccurate as well, because if this was mandatory it's not like current saw manufacturers would simply stop selling saws. My understanding is this product doesn't really change much over time, and while there might be some new features added it's essentially the same product that was created years ago. I think the patent issue is a problem but if that was removed this would be a no brainer to add.

Also, you're absolutely wrong that this won't make saws safer. This will prevent people from sawing their fingers off in the off chance a finger enters the blade. That absolutely makes it safer and its disingenuous to argue otherwise.

> do they sell and advertise saws with this at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. where most people buy their power tools?

Yes, they did. Both companies carried Bosch REAXX saws, which have injury detection sensors, and are advertised accordingly.

^edited to past tense because there's apparently an injunction banning US sales of REAXX. So they tried to, and the reason they don't is that the company advocating for this law won't let them.

> I also think that thinking this will remove consumer choice is inaccurate as well, because if this was mandatory it's not like current saw manufacturers would simply stop selling saws

First, it still removes consumer choice to massively increase the price of saws. The cheapest sensing models I can find listed are >$1,000. The cheapest table saws at Home Depot are ~$400. Tripling the price of the cheapest model is absolutely a restriction of choice, and one that's going to hurt both hobbyists and professionals.

Beyond that, Bosch REAXX is currently being sued by SawStop, the same company/inventor pushing for this legal requirement. Does it restrict consumer choice if there's only one legal brand, all the others having been sued out of the market?

I agree that this technology is makes saws safer. I'm not at all convinced that the safety justifies handing a single company a government monopoly on table saws.

I mean, beyond this specific issue, it does seem they were infringing on the patent, so he has a right to sue to stop it being sold or get royalties from new and previous sales.

I think this tech should be mandatory in all saws, but I also think that one company shouldn't have control over the licensing and it probably shouldn't be something companies have to pay for.

If it's mandatory, the licensing should be both compulsory and FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-descrimatory).

I'd be happy if my saw had the tech.

Didn't sawstop offer to license the technology for something like 8%? It doesn't seem that unreasonable to get a license. I would agree with you if sawstop was trying to prevent anyone from selling a safety saw, but I don't think that is the case.

8% is egregious. Margins on consumer goods after parts and production are often well under 5%. Complex durable goods are probably higher, but even so 8% completely redefines the entire market.

Look at it this way: Bosch decided it was better to spend a small fortune of R&D to try to avoid the patent than to pay the license fees. And even now they haven't settled the resulting lawsuit - they'd rather fight it, because the likely outcome of the fee is not "paying up" but "scrapping the entire product line as a net loss".

Also bear in mind that this technology is a major portion of the total price of a saw - up around 50% on cheaper saws. So it's going to massively increase prices, and also increase SawStop's margins. They didn't just ask for 8%, they asked for 8% while lobbying the government to increase the price they're taking margin on and ban smaller competitors.

This looks like the other form of patent abuse - where instead of trolling you make a product people can't avoid and crush competitors with patent suits.

8% of revenue is HUGE. It would probably be the single biggest expense for each saw.

It also seems strange for that to be a percent instead of a fixed cost since the feature is the same for all models of a saw.

Currently it's just saws from SawStop (now owned by Festool, IIRC?).

Bosch released a saw with similar tech (called Reaxx -- https://www.boschtools.com/us/en/more/news-and-extras/specia...) but they were forced to stop selling it.

To answer your first question, you can't buy a SawStop at Home Depot or Lowes.

If this tech was mandatory, it would force other saw manufacturers to charge $200 more per saw to cover patent licensing from SawStop/Festool.

Let's say the patent issue was rendered unnecessary (maybe courts require safety tech but also require the patent to be allowed royalty free) -- how much would this add to the cost of the saws? If the patent was still valid and they had to license it, are you sure it would add $200? The tech seems simple enough that I have a hard time believing a $400-ish saw becomes $600 due to this.

The Reaxx is comparable (almost the same saw, just without the safety component) to the saw that I use (Bosch 4000-09) and IIRC it cost $1499 before the injunction, compared to the 4000-9's $600.

Wow, that's a 250% increase... I feel like that price is due to pricing the research into it rather than the cost of the actual product itself. Ideally if the tech becomes mandatory it won't be a significant increase.

Ideally the price would be lower, yes.

I have a suspicion that the price increase is due to BOTH a need to recoup R&D and the perceived value of the "safe" saw.

> Besides the horrendous patent issue (say goodbye to market competition)

Bullshit. There are any number of ways to ensure the same functionality (just point a camera at the blade and have a computer stop the blade before it cuts somebody, rather than after, would be one obvious improvement) and if stopping the blade is mandated there will be plenty of competition.

Also, patents expire. I don't know when the patent for this particular device was granted, but given that NPR wrote its first article on them in 2004, they can't have many years left of patent protection.

People do not want safety features untill the need of safety features.

Said everyone who voluntarily buys safe cars.

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