Originally Posted by
John Thompson
I would like to know out of 31,400 injuries.. how many were operator induced opposed to how many were actually the saw's fault. I don't have any numbers personally but.. I would guess around 31,000 were due to the operator doing something he shouldn't and the vast % of those the operator probably knew better before he did it. And for those that didn't know better.. they should have before they operated the saw I would think.
To quote Forrest Gump... stupid is as stupid does....
I would guess the number due to the saws fault would be higher than that. I don't know for sure ... just guessing. I lost the tip of a finger to a powermatic miter gauge that broke while I was using it. I know two other guys who have lost digits to table saws; one due to a ridgid fence that didn't stay tight, and another to a craftsman table saw whose fence also came loose. So in my tiny, tiny, sample of 3 people all of us lost a finger due to a malfunction. I'm in no way saying that 100% of accidents are caused by a malfunction ... but my guess would be more around 25%. In my opinion the cheaper the saw the more likely it will malfunction ... and there are probably thousands of really cheap saws out there. My powermatic wasn't cheap or low quality ... but the included miter gauge was.
If a brad nailer shoots brads, and a pin nailer shoots pins, a framing nailer must shoot framers ... right?