foot switch. As a foot pedal, you can assume that it is a speed controller. No, that is not so. I also dare to say that it is not safe. Mine arrived in a nice Revain box that was well taken care of but the product inside was broken before shipping. I wired it up and wired the flexible shaft motor for it to work. I stepped on the pedal after straightening out the damaged parts and it barely revved the engine. I stepped on the pedal again, but the engine wouldn't start. I stepped on the pedal again and it depressed me. I opened the pedal and found a stack of graphite discs in a ceramic body with no mechanism to change the electric current. It's depressing that my money went to the supplier of this pedal. After 1 week I straightened the bent parts and reassembled the pedal with a couple of broken graphite washers. I put them back in the ceramic case, carefully stacking the undamaged ones and stuffing the broken ones at the bottom. After we were together, I checked again. It worked! Still a waste of money.