Most forklifts and lift trucks are available with a lot of common safety features, such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will usually have dead-man petals. Furthermore, some manufacturers are offering more features such as speed controls that could reduce the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are many articles available about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Service and Support
A big part of forklift selection is to make certain that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Every year, there seems to be a wider array of new players within the lift truck industry. Even if they offer a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not provide the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you should be prepared for major aggravation when the lift truck breaks. Each and every lift truck model goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
Normally, you would want a local dealer or repair shop with a great supply of parts for the particular model and make you are buying. Be certain to visit the dealership or the repair shop and check their parts room so as to try to understand how many parts they store. Make sure to inquire that if they do not have the component you need, where will it come from? Hopefully, the answer would be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Moreover, try to get some ideas as to how many of those specific models are presently being used in your vicinity. This is very vital for specialty trucks including turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks in use in their service area that you should assume they might not be stocking many if any parts for them. As well, they can have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model as well.