This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Donna Martinez, Co-Host of Carolina Journal Radio and Right Angles blogger.
RALEIGH — When I was a kid, there wasn’t any household problem my Dad couldn’t saw, nail, or hammer his way out of, and there wasn’t any gash, puncture, or smashed finger Mom couldn’t nurse. Recounting Dad’s adventures with tools became a family tradition, with Dad laughing the loudest about his poor aim. It never occurred to him to blame the tools or expect more built-in safety features. Dad simply accepted the risk that comes with wielding sharp objects on a Saturday afternoon.
These days Dad’s personal responsibility has been replaced by finger pointing and rule making from the risk-averse Consumer Product Safety Commission. The organization’s latest dreaded threat to the populace? Table saws. Last week the CPSC received information about forcing more rules on manufacturers in an effort to prevent people from cutting off fingers. As the 200+ page document (PDF) detailed, the CPSC “is considering whether a new performance safety standard is needed to address an unreasonable risk of injury associated with table saws.”
Based on that statement, you’d think we’re experiencing an epidemic of detached digits that requires a sweeping government mandate on manufacturers and importers to add more safety features. Or you’d think table saw injuries are so horrific that an average person can’t be expected to take reasonable caution and then live with the obvious risk associated with blades.
No on both counts.
The CPSC cites data that show the trend of saw-related injuries was steady between 2001 and 2008, with an average of 36,400 table saw injuries treated by emergency rooms each year. Narrowed to 2007 and 2008, about 12 percent of the blade contact injuries sustained by operators resulted in amputation — not a good day for the woodworkers in question, but not an epidemic worth slapping a smothering, costly federal mandate onto the $300 million to $400 million annual marketplace.
Today there are about 3 billion U.S. fingers under the jurisdiction of CPSC. Yet, because 4,000 or so are zipped off each year — in some cases because the users are disabling existing safety features — CPSC is on the verge of telling saw makers they’re responsible for what goes on in workshops and garages across the U.S.
If a new rule is adopted, there’s little doubt these products will get more expensive as manufacturers seek to cover costs of design changes, technology, and compliance. For example, Bob Lang of Popular Woodworking Magazine told USA Today that if a technology known as SawStop is deemed mandatory, it could add 40 percent to the cost. If CPSC’s real goal is to make sure the industry sells fewer saws, this rule will do it.
At the heart of CPSC’s move is a belief that danger lurks everywhere and that without government action terrible things will ensue. To be fair, there is a legitimate role for some regulation to supplement voluntary guidelines many industries impose on themselves. It is appropriate for government to act on behalf of the citizenry when we as individuals cannot be expected to protect ourselves from a broad danger or fraud. Reasonable standards for air and water quality are good examples. What’s more, I monitor CPSC’s product recall announcements and find many of them valuable.
There’s a limit, however. When rules, like those proposed for table saws, are mandated to protect us from ourselves — not from others — the rule is merely a vehicle to shift power from individuals to bureaucrats by indulging the unrealistic belief that all risk in life should be eliminated.
It can’t be. But that doesn’t mean consumers are hung out to dry. When injuries stem from the use of a product or service, we have legal recourse. Prove the injury from a table saw was a result of a defective product or fraud or negligence by the manufacturer, and you’re likely to collect damages.
For many folks the option to prove unfair damage isn’t enough. Cheered on by overzealous agencies like CPSC — which has jurisdiction over 15,000 kinds of consumer products — they want a guarantee of no risk and no loss. In the real world, risk and loss are part of life. Now and then people are going to lose fingers when they use a table saw. My dad’s generation accepted that fact, so why can’t we?