The majority of forklifts and lift trucks come with lots of common security features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles would normally have dead-man petals. Furthermore, some manufacturers are offering more features such as speed controls that are able to decrease the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more info, there are numerous available articles on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Support and Service
A huge part of forklift selection is to make certain that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Each year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players in the lift truck industry. Even though they offer a nice price and a decent forklift design, if they do not offer the local or regional service and support infrastructure, you have to be prepared for major stress when the lift truck breaks. Each lift truck model goes down at some point and service, parts and general questions will probably have to be addressed at some point.
Normally, you will want a local repair shop or dealer with a great supply of components for the particular 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 know how many parts they store. Make sure to ask that if they do not have the component you need, where would it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer would be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units presently utilized within your vicinity. This is doubly vital for specialty trucks such as turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being used in their service area that you should assume they might not be stocking many if any parts for them. As well, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model too.