During the past couple years I've suffered three incidents (with three different records) of the lead out groove "leading" my cartridge onto the label. Fortunately I was in the listening room each time and managed to get the arm lifted before any damage was done.
Each time I was reminded of the Phillips G212 TT I owned in the late 70's/early 80's that sported a useful feature: at the end of each record, once the arm had traveled most of the way thru the deadwax area, the platter would cease to rotate. You still had to lift the arm manually, but you didn't need to do it immediately and you certainly didn't have to worry about lead out groove failure that could result in trashing the stylus/cartirdge.
Each time I was reminded of the Phillips G212 TT I owned in the late 70's/early 80's that sported a useful feature: at the end of each record, once the arm had traveled most of the way thru the deadwax area, the platter would cease to rotate. You still had to lift the arm manually, but you didn't need to do it immediately and you certainly didn't have to worry about lead out groove failure that could result in trashing the stylus/cartirdge.