Most forklifts and lift trucks are available with many common safety features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will normally have dead-man petals. In addition, certain manufacturers are offering extra features such as speed controls which could reduce the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more information, there are numerous articles available on Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Support and Service
Making certain you will maintain access to high levels of service and support is a very vital part of forklift selection. There seem to be a range of new players in the lift truck business every year. Although they provide a decent lift truck design and a good price, if they do not provide the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you should be prepared for major stress when the lift truck goes down. Every kind of lift truck goes down sooner or later and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
Generally, you would want a local dealer or repair shop with a great supply of components for the specific make and model you are purchasing. Be sure to visit the dealership or the repair shop and take a look at their parts room so as to try to know how many parts they stock. Make sure to inquire that if they do not have the part you need, where would it come from? Hopefully, the answer would be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the models currently used in your area. This is doubly important for specialty trucks such as turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks in use in their service area that you must assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. In addition, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model as well.