You've heard the horror stories related to tool accidents on the jobsite:

A Lancaster, Calif., construction worker slipped and fell on a nail gun, which shot six nails into his face, neck, and skull.

A self-employed Truckee, Calif., contractor tossed his drill to the ground when the ladder he was standing on began to wobble. When he fell, he landed on the tool, and the heavy-duty bit bored an 18-inch hole through one eye and out the side of his skull.

A Houston-area remodeler accidentally shot a ½-inch nail through his chest.

Believe it or not, these contractors are the lucky ones because they all survived. One out of every five fatal work injuries occurs on a construction site. On home-building sites, 128 people died in 2003, according to the latest statistics available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's about one every other work day.

But grim statistics don't keep contractors with no eye protection from firing nails into the floor, propping 2x4s against their legs for support before sawing them in two, or even cutting the grounding plugs off of extension cords so they can force them into household outlets.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE Staff

When it comes to preventing potentially deadly accidents with power tools, builders, remodelers, and their subs need to do more than tell their workers about the dangers, say pros who boast accident-free workplaces. Indeed, the path to harmless home building might start with a slow switch from the real-men-don't-wear-goggles attitude of some construction veterans to a culture in which safety is the coolest tool on the jobsite.

A first step might be ensuring that everyone is using power tools safely, a lesson often overlooked because it's so obvious. But power tools have changed, says Terry Tuerk, product and training manager for manufacturer Metabo, who notes that bigger, faster-acting tools require more torque. “As the power gets greater, there's more chance for kickback or loss of control,” he says.

In response, manufacturers have piled on safety features that help users operate the tools more comfortably and that will automatically shut them off if they sense trouble. Andy Lundberg, a national sales manager for Target and Felker brand tools, notes that his company's most popular tile saw has 14 built-in safety features ranging from automatic shut-off if the blade gets jammed to a grounded motor to a switch guard that prevents a user from accidentally turning on the saw.

DeWalt's Greg Moores, vice president of engineering for the construction tools division, says his firm's technicians try to anticipate every possible misuse, malfunction, and defect and build in safety features that will react to those mishaps.

Still, admits Jason Feldner, public relations manager for Bosch, safety features only go so far to protect a worker who doesn't know how to use the tool or deliberately uses it incorrectly. “Manufacturers go to great extents to build safety into tools in terms of guards and safety switches,” he says. “But when it comes down to safety and tools, it's using them correctly.”

While some, including Northern California carpenter and general contractor Tom Carty, say the responsibility for personal safety lies with the person who's using the tool, OSHA says otherwise, laying an equal burden on the employer to create a hazard-free workplace and make sure everyone who works there knows how to do the job safely.

Some pros are seeing to that in clever and unique ways. Here, builders, remodelers, and safety experts offer their advice for making sure using the tools of the trade on a residential jobsite means using them safely.