Having grown up in a rural environment and nearly having my own catastrophic accident while using a circular saw with all of its safety features intact and myself being in an alert and mindful state, I can only describe the scenario you've outlined as, "typical idiot-class behavior".

You see this kind of stuff amongst the petty-criminal working class who chain smoke and binge drink and steal tools off the work site and complain about never being able to get ahead. I've had numerous uncles and neighbors who have life-long debilitating injuries because they showed up to work drunk and fell of a ladder or dropped a running chainsaw on their foot. Every single one of them thought they were a bad ass who "knew what they were doing".

My own accident occurred because I was over-using the tool. I did not have the best tool for the job. The tool was generally appropriate, but I also didn't have the best work space set up for it. The work space wasn't uncomfortable, but I didn't give myself room for error. I thought I had all of the safety features in place and was "being extra careful" while I used it at an awkward angle. Then, halfway through the cut, I noticed the off-cut drooping and knew it was going to damage the piece I was cutting if it dropped too far. I reached to support the droop with my off-hand, which given my angle meant I had to cross under my arm pushing the tool. In a moment I still don't completely understand, the path I sent my hand on did not go directly towards my armpit as I knew I would need to do to keep clear of the tool and instead went under the saw directly. I ended up touching the running saw blade sticking out of the bottom of the piece I was cutting.

A half-dozen different things could have been done differently to avoid the mistake, any one of which is not all that dangerous in isolation, but combined created an incredibly narrow error envelope.

What I didn't consider is that "being extra careful" can change in an instant. One little bump in balance, one little fleeting distraction, one little change of thought as you are mid-task and don't immediately stop to re-evaluate and you blow right on out of your after envelope.

Luckily, I only cut the tips of two fingers. I was able to get them stitched up and they have healed almost completely (there is some thick scar tissue right where my fingers hit keys in my keyboard that serves as a daily reminder).

You don't see this behavior amongst the professionals in the trades who successfully build their businesses from the ground up. Professionals over design their safety envelope. And they still occasionally get hurt. Just not as catastrophicly so.

> What I didn't consider is that "being extra careful" can change in an instant. One little bump in balance, one little fleeting distraction, one little change of thought as you are mid-task and don't immediately stop to re-evaluate and you blow right on out of your after envelope.

This is a great summary.

Your best-laid plans (with power tools, motor vehicles, gravity, etc) can be completely invalidated with a single twitch (possibly not even your own). If you're operating at the margins of safety, there is no room for that.

And it takes experience to know where you are on the safety spectrum! But even that is sometimes inadequate.

For example, I love my radial arm saw. It's my favorite tool for cross-cutting wood. It's an old Craftsman, from the 1970s or so. I bought it from a furniture manufacturer who used it as an infrequently-used backup tool for ad hoc manual fixups, since new (they had big industrial machines for ordinary manufacturing operations). It was very close to new spec when I bought it, but I've tuned it back to perfect. All of the safety guards (the minimal ones that existed in the 1970s) except the dust hood were removed before I bought it.

Anyway, I love it. But they don't really sell RAS's at the consumer level any more, because people hurt themselves with them too frequently. Table saws are also quite dangerous, apparently. Circular saws are supposed to be the safest option, even more so than miter saws.

So I have a lot of experience with all of these tools, and with my RAS specifically. I think I know where I am on the safety spectrum, which I believe to be acceptably safe. But the statistics say otherwise, and one of us must be wrong. I don't think it's me, and my ten fingers attest to that belief.

Right? Or maybe wrong! I think about this every single time I use the RAS, which is probably a good thing. I guess we'll see.

That's a good anecdote! I can relate although my mistakes and almost-mistakes aren't related to power tools.

Well put!