Ok I pretty much lurk here except to milk you guys for information
once and a while, but the SawStop posts and safety debates have piqued
my interest. I work in a shop with about a dozen other guys and we've
got a couple sliding table saws, a couple Unisaurs and a couple of the
big 12-14" Deltas too. The only saw that really ever has the blade
guard in place is the Altendorf slider, and that's probably on 1/3 of
the time - when someone's breaking down a pile of plywood for cabinet
box parts. And then it's really only used for the dust collection.
In the 5 years I've been at the shop we've had exactly one hand injury
from a table saw, and that was a guy doing a groove in a very small
part that he admits he never should have done anyway, and couldn't
possibly have done it with the guard in place. (He basically put a
little groove in the tip of a finger - two stitches.) When I go over
to the slider, for example, and I need to rip a strip of plywood for
say a stretcher, if that guard is in place I push it right out of the
way. I just don't like reaching my hand around that big plastic thing
wondering where in the heck the blade is - I like to be able to see
the spinning blade (through my (almost) ever present safety glasses)
so I can keep my hand away from it. I feel like those guards might
actually make things more unsafe WHILE CUTTING. Now if someone's
going to walk by a saw and slip and fall into a spinning blade,
well..what in the hell is he doing anyhow? I mean seriously - if you
can't walk around your shop without falling into the top of a table
saw, you've got bigger issues to address than a blade guard. And in
the case of the whole Whirlywind versus SawStop debate I'd have to
come down decidedly on the SawStop side of things - if it was a choice
between one or the other. (But there's not much chance of me buying a
$3000 saw any time soon...and if I were I'd be getting a really nice
used Tannewitz with a feeder or something along those lines.)

So I guess I have no real point other than to say that I think safety
in the shop is at least 95% using good commone sense and keeping your
eye on things. Feeling how the wood and the saw are responding is key
for me. Proper technique and feed rate are key. A splitter is
absolutely a great thing. Guards? I'm just not a fan.