There was a time when a reasonable portion of the population was either raised on a farm or like in my case, spent their summers and holidays on my grandparents farm. This means these people were exposed to equipment at a young age and likely grew up having already driven a manual transmission vehicle by time you were 12 years old (or even much sooner). You had driven tractors, knew enough to stay away from spinning PTO shafts and the that revolving blades are dangerous, kill people and throw things.
Just as there was a time when virtually everyone knew how to properly put a saddle and harness on horses to either pull a carriage, a wagon or ride it as a means of transportation, today, I bet less than 2% of the general public could do the same. What was once a basic skill, is no longer. Soon, equipment operation will be much the same way. Its the direction we are headed and some even call it progress.
Fast forward to a society where people are walking in front of moving vehicles, they fall in open holes, they crash head on into innocent people from having crossed the center lines of roads. Much of this happens because of their use of so called "smart devices" to which they are so emotionally tethered to their electronic devices, they don't dare not check to see what the latest tweet from a twit is sharing with the world.
Common sense is no longer common, peoples experience around equipment is woefully inadequate and its rapidly getting worse. Why do manufacturers have to focus on making machines as safe as possible? Since most likely never have been shown and trusted to operate something correctly, the manufacturer must make machines with levels of safety protections to protect those who never were shown and allowed to properly and safely operate equipment.
There is a new trend that I see among many young people, which absolutely stuns me,. When I was growing up, you took Driver Education when you were 15 years old. In fact, 47% of all 16 year olds had their drivers license in 1983. In 2014, that percentage is now down to 24%.
The large scale result is you have people less and less qualified to operate machinery. Now, add in the autonomous driving vehicle technology and you have people who no longer feel THEY are responsible for the vehicles operation, because the "technology is supposed to safely operate the vehicle." The recent severe crash involving a Tesla found the owner / driver of the car was "eating breakfast" and had trusted the car would "drive itself". Well, it did drive itself, right into the back of a stopped semi truck..............
And so it goes..................Expect more machinery to have more and more safety equipment because the reality is machinery operators are less skilled, less experienced and less willing to accept personal responsibility for their own actions as time passes. With the proliferation of "1-800-Sue-Them" personal enrichment lawyers (excuse me, personal injury attorneys) this will only further escalate the liability issues and expand the use of safety devices on machinery to protect people from themselves.
Think about it, 50 years from now, people won't be driving cars and trucks. They will merely be passengers in their own vehicles. The skills of machinery operation will decline rapidly among the general public and it will make operating such things as tractors and mowers even less common among the population. It will reach a point where those who purchase equipment will likely have to undergo one on one instructions to operate the equipment. Or they will run it with the smart phone while sitting in the house.