CPSC ANPR on table saws

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That means "Consumer Product Safety Commission Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking". They are asking for comments on requiring a safety feature on table saws. See here for one commissioner's comments.

Anyone know how to submit comments on this subject? They say you can go to www.regulations.gov and submit comments but you need the docket number of the ANPR, which I can't find. If someone is better at finding these things, I'd appreciate your help.

Mike
 
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I went and posted my comments. The net of my thinking is that the table saw, as is, is inherently dangerous. We tolerated this situation up to now because we didn't have any alternative. But technology has advanced to the point where we can make a saw that is significantly safer, and at a reasonable cost. We should not permit inherently dangerous tools to be sold if there's a reasonable alternative.

And that's what I told the CPSC.

Mike
 
Crux of my statement.

Taken from petition to change the rules.

"Stephen Gass, David Fanning, and James Fulmer, et al. (``petitioners'') requested that we require performance standards for a system to reduce or prevent injuries from contact with the blade of a table saw."

Guess who the inventor of the sawstop is?

Just for the record. I think the sawstop is an amazing machine and it has it's place, but not forced.
 
They don't care about our comments, they just need to be able to say "we opened it up for public comment".

You might be surprised. The people who run these agencies are not nameless, faceless automatons. Most of them are whip-smart. The ones I've met have been *way* smarter than I am, dedicated, up on the issues. You can't slide any you-know-what past them in meetings. And they take input from all sides. Their rulings (in other fields) haven't always gone the way I wanted, but I never once got the impression they didn't want to hear what people had to say. Quite the contrary, in fact... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
Mike,
What expert opinion are you basing your "inherently dangerous" statement on?
It's the legal theory that has allowed table saw manufacturers to avoid liability up to this point. When they were sued in the past, their defense was that the table saw was inherently dangerous and that the user accepted the risk when using it. Until recently they were successful with that defense.

So the "expert opinion" is the table saw manufacturers themselves.

Mike

[It's also why the table saw manufacturers did not want to add the SawStop technology to their saws - because they'd lose the inherently dangerous defense.]
 
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I think perhaps you're assuming that the SawStop technology will be the final solution. That may not be the way it turns out. The CPSC will set a performance standard and the manufacturers will have to develop ways (technology) to meet the performance standard. The manufacturers have had a lot of time to work on alternate methods of meeting such a standard and may already have technology to do it.

Companies can be very inventive when they put their mind to it. We'll just have to wait and see what the industry comes up with.

Mike

[Even after such technology is implemented on all new saws, the accident rate will decline slowly because there's a lot of older machines out there. But there's a lot of table saws sold each year and gradually the installed base will be predominantly new technology. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".]
 
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Thank god for old iron. Under no circumstances would I allow a SawStop or similar technology in my building.

I grow weary of being told what is best for me.
 
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