I agree with Gay and ManiacQuilter2. Some templates are made of thick, hard plastic as are most quilting rulers and would, then, be safer to cut around with a rotary cutter. However, using a rotary cutter in a motion other than straight away from your body can be a bit dangerous. If you had a rotating cutting mat, that would be safer when cutting 'around' a template as you could just rotate the mat so the cutting motion would be away from your body. Rulers are also, generally, more versatile than templates.