boomerzimm

Full disclosure: I own a Sawstop and that may cloud some people's judgement.

I also think the ruling in the law suit is ridiculous but I understand the argument.

The worker trained or not was doing something that was fairly unreasonable with a machine that is known to cause injury. If you hand an untrained person a loaded gun as part of his job (assuming it has to be loaded and unlocked to do said job) and he points the dangerous end at himself and pulls the trigger who's fault is it? Probably not truly the gun manufacturer. Some amount of training is the key and that falls on the employer.

Either way there is an injury. I think we are all assuming Mr Osorio had no form of training. If he knew he was doing something unsafe he is just asking for an accident. If he was not trained the employer has some responsibility. If the tool is found unsafe the manufacturer has a hand in it as well.

All that aside we seem to have a simple argument here, whether there is personal responsibility in your actions or not.

The personal responsibility crowd should argue that it it totally up to Mr Osorio and not the insurance company (those individuals who pay insurance) or the government (those individuals who pay taxes) to help him with his medical expenses. Further they should argue that it is not our (society as a whole) responsibility to support him or his family in any way if he can not continue to earn a living.

We as a nation are not prepared to do that and until we are the personal responsibility argument should be out the window because there is no true personal responsibility. Insurance and a social net are like a blade brake. Nice to have but I still don't want to test it.

Of the people writing here almost all have had some sort of training on a table saw. Most know and generally practice some form of safety precaution when using a power tool. Only a few people will argue that these precautions can prevent any accident. Almost all of us have had close calls that we chalk up to learning. However if you are injured at any point in your life by actions taken of your own volition power tool or not. You expect to be able to be treated at the hospital like any other person. This is the point; if there are reasonable ways to help prevent that situation from becoming costly/deadly why wouldn't you take them. It is us as a society to decide what is reasonable.

Believe me if this issue went another way, say your insurance for owning a table saw increased to cover all the costs associated with table saw injuries and put the responsibility for bearing those cost directly on the table saw operators, people would be clamoring for a way to keep the "dumb" people from hurting themselves. I'd also have to guess that there would be a whole lot less people using a table saw for personal use.

On another point I think that Mr. Christiana's argument that not having flesh sensing technology focuses the mind is just daft. Driving on ice focuses your attention but people still crash.

On my saw there is still a spinning blade, yes I know it should stop and fall bellow the table if I jamb my hand in it but I don't want to find out if it works. I still use a push stick. Some people won't but would they have used one anyway.



this is for aschaffter:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000055630&year=2011

Money is the only way to get things done in Washington. Campaign finance reform is the solution to that problem and that is a whole other kettle of fish.

Keep making splinters
Boomer

Maybe I was bad but when Santa can't get there there is always UPS.

Cheers
Brendan