Power tools serve us well. They enable us to perform difficult
tasks with greater ease and accuracy than most of us could
ever hope for without them. However, they demand respect.
To avoid accidents, power tool operators must be knowledgeable
and thoroughly prepared. Inexperienced, untrained, and
unprepared operators can be injured within minutes of attempting
to use a power tool. Your teaching will play a critical role in
helping your students avoid serious injury now and throughout
their lives.

    Modern power tools are designed to operate safely when
used prudently and according to all instructions in the tool's
operator's manual. Virtually all power tool accidents are
preventable. Yet, accidents happen to novices and
experienced operators alike.

    Experienced tool operators get into trouble when they are
careless or give in to the temptation to hurry or violate safety
rules. Accidents involving novices are most often caused by a
lack of necessary safety knowledge and/or respect for what a tool
can do. The inexperienced tool operator may fail to identify a
potentially dangerous situation. He or she may not recognize, for
example, the sound of a saw that is beginning to labor because of
a binding or pinching condition on the blade. The knowledgeable
operator knows that sound is warning of an impending kickback
condition. Your students need to learn such things too.

    Three of the major causes of power tool injuries are inattention
through repetition, an unexpected event, and inexperience or
over confidence.

Inattention Through Repetition
    Inattention through repetition is most likely to occur at a busy
jobsite or in a production shop. Hurrying to beat deadlines
increases the risk of accidents and injuries. No matter how
competent and confident the operator, he or she must not allow
himself or herself to become complacent. Teach your students to
pause deliberately after every few repeat operations to refocus
on the task at hand and then proceed with renewed awareness.

Unexpected Events
    Because most power tools operate at high speeds, when
things happen, they tend to happen very quickly. A kickback
situation can suddenly hurl a workpiece - or a portable tool
itself - at the operator. Fingers might be drawn into the blade in
some instances, or the tool may move toward fingers or other
body parts that are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Working with fingers too near the blade can result in a wide
variety of unpleasant surprises. Giving into distractions such
as trying to catch a waste strip moving backward on a table
saw after the cut can cause an operator to thoughtlessly move
his or her hands into dangerous areas.

     Unexpected events are more likely to end badly when
operators are inexperienced, plan poorly or don't understand
how a particular tool works. For example, attempting to cut, joint,
or shape small workpieces without a guard and the use of work
helpers (or jigs) can end in disaster. Blades and cutters can
mangle fingers when an operator attempts to machine small
pieces. Teaching your students how to build and use jigs and
fixtures that keep the workpiece under control and hands well
away from blades and cutters is essential.

Inexperience and Overconfidence
     Some people with many years of experience grow accustomed
to working with their hands dangerously close to blades and
cutters — sometimes without protective guards in place. A
sudden grab of the workpiece or a kickback condition can cause
fingers or hands to be pulled into the cutter almost instantaneously.
Experience, although a good teacher, can lull us into
overconfidence. The foolish risks we then become willing to take
can inflict very painful lessons on us and our families. Teach your
students that risks like these are absolutely not worth it.

Lesson Suggestion... Play Safety Cop

Objective: To teach students how to prepare themselves, their
tools, and their job sites for the safe use of power tools.

Materials/Requirements: Teacher's Video Guide, Power Tool
Accidents - They Can Be Prevented video, and a well-appointed
shop environment.

What To Do:

1. Review the Teacher's Guide which accompanies the video.

2. Introduce the video by instructing the class that it covers four
areas for safe use of power tools.

• Safe Work Area

• Electrical Safety

• Good Personal Work Habits

• Proper Use and Care of Tools

3. Encourage the students to look for examples of each while
reviewing the video.

4. Show the video.

5. Review the points made in the video.

6. Photocopy the safety rules in "Safety Is Specific" and the
Teacher's Guide and distribute these to your students.

7. Answer students' questions and discuss general safety
procedures with them.

Following this orientation, choose a student to serve as "Safety
Cop" at your next working session. He/she will inspect each
student job site and determine whether or not it is in acceptable
condition according to the safety precautions and procedures
read and discussed. Allow no one to begin working until the
"Safety Cop" and you have inspected and approved the job site.

Allow students to knowingly display errors to test the Safety
Cop's expertise.

Assign a different student to play "Safety Cop" at each of your
working meetings until every student has had a chance.

Refer to...

Power Tool Accidents -
They Can Be Prevented
19-minute video.

Safety Is Specific, page 21.

A Teachers Reference Guide to
Power Tool Safety, page 7.

On the Job Power Tool
Maintenance Check List.