A major study conducted by the Journal Of hand surgery among the woodworkers revealed that woodworking equipment produces over 700,000 significant injuries a year. The study also revealed that the majority of the injuries were caused by a table saw. The professional woodworkers who used these tools on a daily basis suffered the injury more frequently.

A company called SawStop introduced the SawStop technology to increase the safety of these workers. SawStop safety system was developed that detects when the blade of the table saw is touched; a blade brake is employed to stop the saw blade within milliseconds, thus stopping the saw and preventing extensive injury. In the testing phase, the technology was introduced in a cabinet saw and later in a comparable contractor saw also.

Working of SawStop
The saw blade is given an electronic signal that sensors monitor constantly. If the signal happens to drop below a certain range, the saw is stopped by a spring-loaded aluminum block in approximately 1/200th of a second. in the time it takes for two or three more teeth to make contact with the skin, the saw is completely stopped, as the tests have shown. Thus, the devastating injury to the user is prevented and converted into just a scratch of the skin. the force of the inertia of the blade actually
causes the blade to drop beneath the table top when the blade and the motor comes to a sudden halt. both the blade and brake will
need to be replaced once the brake has engaged.