Is Your Table Saw Dangerous Without This ?

For reasons unknown, "Riving Knives" have real fascination with woodworkers that "Splitters" never enjoyed, although they do nearly identical functions, but the new versions of splitters, easily have the upper hand  the more recent Riving Knife adaption. 

I se this happening all the time, someone acquires a new table saw and the first thing they do is remove the Splitter with the protective cowling and anti-kickback Pawls, then proceed to install a Riving Knife.  

I have had the opportunity to ask a few woodworkers why they did this and the general answer is simply "because everyone else does it so it must be the best". Not really the best answer, and when you look closely, certainly and newer splitters, it's pretty clear the for safety reasons, splitters are by far the best alternative ... but riving knives still have a place in the workshop.

Riving knives are well defined, a solid block of steel that sits close behind the table saw blade, follows the curvature of the blade, is equal to or below the height of the blade, and tracks the up and down movement of the table saw blade as it is moved up and down in the table saw. All these features are a Riving Knife.
Anything else the falls outside of this definition, is by default, a Splitter. There are many, many different kinds of splitters from those that look and act similar to a riving knife, to those that are shop built or commercially made and are attached to the table saw base, or even to the table saw insert plate. 

Splitters became somewhat common on new table saw purchases well before riving knives. This is easily recognized by the fact that many older saw that have splitters will no accommodate  a riving knife. The whole reason for the design of the original splitter was to prevent "natural wood" (i.e. NOT man made woods like plywood, MDF etc.) from "pinching" behind the table saw blade, which can create a significant kick-back risk to the operator. Man made woods will not pinch behind the table saw blade as there are no built in "tensions" in man made woods.