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For you robust younger guys who only drop start now, just wait, your day is coming when you will look for a less demanding approach.
Mark
My father is 75 and will tell you that drop starting is still the least strenuous way for him to start a saw. You're letting gravity do part of the work for you. Plus for him bending way over or kneeling down to put the saw on the ground and then pull start it in that position is harder on him. My father also believes it is hard on the saw, the clutch specifically, to start a chainsaw with the brake applied because you are intentionally wearing the clutch unnecessarily. My father is a mechanical engineer and has also taught OSHA compliance so he understands both sides of the argument and still feels the way he does.
By drop starting I mean using the left hand on the wrap handle, right hand on the pull rope, and then drop or slightly throw the saw downward while maintaining a firm grip with the left hand and pulling up on the rope sharply with the right hand.
Of all the things I worry about my father still doing at his age -- and cutting all his firewood largely by himself is definitely one of them -- the act of drop starting his saw is by far the least of my concerns.
I personally think this is kind of similar to the no top handle saws on the ground argument. If you are coordinated, know what you are doing, and paying attention then it's not really any more dangerous than many other parts of using a chainsaw. Sure you can get yourself in trouble but you can do that just felling a tree too. If you are a government agency whose job it is to try to protect people from themselves you will recommend or mandate every conceivable way of reducing risk -- even if the risk you are trying to mitigate is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Life is one big exercise in risk management. Nothing is perfectly safe; people die from household accidents all the time. Going out in the woods and cutting down big trees while you stand right next to them is inherently dangerous -- and many on here do it for fun.
Sometimes I think it is amazing you are allowed to cut a tree down by hand with a chainsaw at all anymore. You would think OSHA would mandate the use of a harvester or similar equipment to keep the people a safer distance away. Can you imagine a construction site where you need to demmo a large 100 foot tall tower, light post, vertical steel beam or similar structure where a guy just walks up with some type of saw, cutting torch, plasma arch, etc. yells timber and drops the whole thing over? Of course not, that would never be allowed. Be we do it with trees all the time.
Having said all this, if your work requires you to abide by certain safety rules then so be it. I have to know and follow all kinds of rules at work that wouldn't be necessary if everybody used a little more common sense (and integrity but that's a whole 'nother issue). Out side of work I have more leeway to choose how I assume risk. I'm probably more cautions than the average person on here but drop starting a saw is not something I worry about.
-Eric
