Most forklifts and lift trucks come with lots of common security features, including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will usually have dead-man petals. Additionally, some manufacturers are offering more features like for example speed controls which can reduce the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are numerous articles available about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Service and Support
Making certain you will maintain access to high levels of support and service is a very vital part of forklift selection. There seem to be a variety of new players within the lift truck industry every year. Although they offer a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not offer the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you should be ready for significant stress when the forklift goes down. Each type of lift truck goes down sooner or later and service, parts and general questions will probably have to be answered at some point.
Generally, you would want a local repair shop or dealer with a great supply of parts for the specific make and model you are buying. Be sure to visit the dealership or the repair shop and take a look at their parts room in order to try to understand how many parts they stock. Make certain to ask that if they do not have the part you need, where would it come from? Hopefully, the answer would be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units presently utilized in your area. This is doubly important for specialty trucks like turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being utilized in their service area that you should assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. As well, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model as well.