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From Seatbelts to Saws ? That Old ?Safety Doesn?t Sell? Schtick Again

By Joe Consumer

Today, NPR had a great story  about an entrepreneur named Steve Gass who invented a safety device for table saws, called SawStop.  It?s a safety brake that can actually sense when the blade makes contact with a finger, and if it were installed on saws, it would save thousands of people (including students in shop class ) from losing fingers each year ? some more than one at a time.  

For the past 10 years, Gass has tried to get the big power tool companies to license and use it but they refuse because the device would add to the cost of the saws. Gass says, ?They came back and said, 'Well, we've looked at it, but we're not interested because safety doesn't sell,' " adding that he thought, "What a crazy attitude." 

It may be crazy, but it?s not like we haven?t heard that before.  In fact, check out Senator Al Franken?s opening remarks at the Elena Kagen hearing last week, talking about seatbelts in the context of money and politics, and the Citizens United Supreme Court decision (and learn even more on our podcast page here).  Franken said:

In the early 1960s, car companies knew that they could avoid a large number of fatalities just by installing seat belts in every vehicle.  But they didn't want to.  They said "safety doesn't sell."

But Congress didn't listen to the car companies.  And so in 1966, Congress passed a law requiring that all passenger cars have seatbelts.

Since then, the fatality rate from car accidents has dropped 71 percent.

(Emphasis added.  And by the way, that?s about 15,000 lives a year.)

Meanwhile, famed law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner (yes, that David Boises) is now ?representing dozens of injured people? in suing the power tool industry, noting that ?the firm recently won a $1.5 million verdict against the power-tool maker Ryobi. ?Our hope is that we don't have to try 50 cases before we convince the industry that they need to change table saws, and that they need to use an available safety technology to protect customers,? [Attorney Stuart] Singer says.?

Meanwhile, the Consumer Project Safety Commission, who really likes this safety device, still hasn?t done much, ?prefer[ing] to see the industry adopt the technology voluntarily.?  Sigh.  NPR reports, 

[A]ccording to the CPSC's own data ? tens of thousands of people have had their hands mangled and their fingers chopped off on table saws.  "I believe that if we don't see a voluntary standard soon, that we should look at making this product a part of our rule making so we can build that in as part of a mandatory standard," [CPSC Chair Inez] Tenenbaum says. "If we have something that can prevent injury, we need to act upon it now." The chairman has not yet asked the industry to implement a safety brake such as SawStop as a voluntary standard. If and when Tenenbaum does that, she'd give companies several months to respond before seeking new regulations.

Kinda makes you yearn for the 1960?s again, doesn't it? 

Full post as published by ThePopTort on July 08, 2010 (boomark / email).