So did south make contract?
Product liability law is not my forté, but I wonder if you haven’t articulated a new line of attack:
“Your Honor, the manufacturer negligently made their product TOO safe, when they knew or should have known that this would invite their customers to disable their safety features completely.”
I bought a Troy Bilt push mower with electric start. My wife wants to mow but pull starting is real painful for her. Best damn money I have ever spent on a mower - $300 on sale at Lowes last year. A positive joy to use.
It has the usual safety features. I have not bothered to disable any since with a quick twist of the key it comes right back on. Now if we could get one that vaporizes clippings instead of bags them I would be golden, but that hasn’t hit the shelves yet.
Tragically, no. Two tricks were all it took to show the problem with his radical card-table-saw hybrid. Memorial service is next Wednesday.
:smack:
Oh hai. Is this the dark side? Do you have cookies? 
Little known fact: A man with one hand bandaged up is 50 percent less likely to molest your kid.
Seems reasonable. In IT security it’s accepted that if you make security methods too convoluted, users will bypass them (long passwords will be written on post-it notes on the side of a monitor, users will share logins, etc)
Is **THIS **a serious question?
Absolutely. Most people do not disable safety features.
Try a car that goes “bing bing bing” when you exceed the maximum speed limit of the country you’re in. Observed in Japan and Singapore - and in Japan it was the maximum highway speed so if you were on the freeway it went off constantly.
Think about kayaker’s question for another minute, Gato.
The purpose of a “safety feature” on a tool or device is to prevent a specific scenario the manufacturer has identified as likely to result in accidental injurious use of the equipment. What distinguishes such a feature from a warning label or operational indicator is that it actively or passively limits one or more specific aspects of the functionality of the equipment.
This is tautological. The injury scenario being mitigated by the safety feature is consequential to the functionality of the equipment being [mis]used by the operator.
There are certainly cases where safety features are poorly engineered or overly restrictive, but it’s missing the point entirely to complain that a safety feature impedes function. Of course it does. It’s quite deliberately meant to do so.
(BTW, great user name/post;))
Because I can objectively analyze my ability to use an item safely?
My chainsaw is a perfect example. I have to cut up a fallen tree several times every year. I know a guy who screwed up using a chainsaw, and who died before anyone knew there was a problem. I am uber cautious with my Stihl, yet I have received an injury (I gouged my thumb while putting on a new chain. The damn saw wasn’t even running). Each time I use the saw, I first analyze the situation. Maybe one time in ten I’ll realize that I am getting in over my head and call a pro to do it.
I mow about two acres of yard each week. I also mow 40 acres of horse pasture twice yearly. I am comfortable doing these chores. It would be easier to mow the horse pastures across the slight slope, yet I go up and down to avoid rollover.
Sure, there are people who cut off fingers putting their fucking hands near the spinning blade for fuck’s sake! These are people who should pay someone to cut their grass. Yet the person they pay has to deal with over done safety “features”.
Seriously? Everyone I know disables the dead man switch on their push mower. Everyone.
At the risk of seeming condescending or pompous, I’m going to disagree with that claim. My cite is your admission that you disable the deadman’s switch on your lawnmower so that you can leave it running while you clear obstructions from its path. I know you don’t agree that this disqualifies you as a rational and objective analyst, but perhaps I can persuade you or others to change your perspectives.
Ever considered walking the area to be mowed prior to the job? Nothing about the construction of your machine would prevent that. Same thing with setting up for use of a table saw, or for loading, carrying and firing a weapon, or for driving a car.
Bottom line is, if common safety features are such nuisances they disrupt your ability to do a job, you’ might not be doing the job as cleverly as you think you are. Check your processes, do the necessary prep work on your tools and work surfaces and materials and you might actually find those guards and interlocks much less problematic.
I don’t, and I don’t know anyone who does. So we are back to square one.
Another vote for no way I would disable the deadman switch on the mower. I can’t comment on anyone else because I can’t recall ever having a conversation with someone about their lawnmower prior to this thread 
I do. Yet I cannot accurately predict things yet to occur. Like one of the dogs taking a huge dump while I mow. So I need to get the poop scooper and pick it up. But I’d rather leave the mower running while I do this thirty second task.
I do not own a table saw, but if I did it would be one with safety features intact, even if I had to pay extra. See, I have little to no experience operating a table saw.
“Driving” a car, I’m referring to hooking up a boat trailer parked on my property. I back the truck up in the general direction of the trailer and hop out to check position. Back in, pull forward and to the left a few feet, hop back out and look. Back up slowly a foot, hop out. Back in, back up six inches and slightly to the right, hop out. Back in. . .etc. Fuck if I’m putting my seat belt on/off each time while never having my speed register on the speedometer. So I keep an old male end of a seatbelt in the truck just for this purpose, or I disengage the buzzer.
I stopped the other day to ask a neighbor a question. He was mowing. He unhooked his safety work-around, which was a piece of twist-tie material. I told him I use a bungee cord. We talked about this.
Then, I had to disable the seat interlock on the tractor, and that led to this thread.
I didn’t. Partially because it’s the only way to turn off the mower, short of wrestling the hot wire off the spark plug. Partially because I have a reasonably steep hill to cut, and there’s a non-zero possibility I’ll slip while doing it, and I’m really happy the mower will stop if I do slip.
I work at a safety agency, and although I am not a safety engineer, I see a LOT of accident reports and other safety documents, including ones on safety theory.
Safety features which contribute to accidents are a known concern. Sometimes the issue is the one identified in this thread – that people deliberately disable the safety feature (usually to save time, not really “improve functionality”). But there are other ways in which supposed safety features can contribute to accidents. One classic way is by adding complication…for example, an audible warning alarm going off is good in theory, but 30 different audible alarms going off during a given crisis will not help the operator(s) figure out what’s wrong, let alone help them stay remain calm and focused.
Still, it’s almost always a bad idea to disable a mechanical safety interlock. And “confidence that you are smarter than the people it was designed to protect” is not necessarily an indicator your accident report won’t cross my desk.