The majority of forklifts and lift trucks are available with lots of common security features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will almost always have dead-man petals. Furthermore, some manufacturers are providing extra features like speed controls that could decrease the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are numerous available articles on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Support and Service
A big part of lift truck selection is to make sure that you maintain access to high levels of support and service. Each year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players within the forklift business. Although they provide a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not provide the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you have to be ready for significant stress when the forklift breaks. Each and every kind of lift truck goes down sooner or later and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
You will normally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a full supply of the parts you need for your specific unit. Be sure to visit the dealership or the repair shop and check their parts room so as to try to know how many parts they store. Make certain to ask that if they do not have the part you need, where would it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer will be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units currently utilized within your vicinity. This is doubly essential for specialty trucks like 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. Also, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model too.