There are a range of safety features which are common to particular kinds of trucks like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On most stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals too. Moreover, certain manufacturers are offering more features such as speed controls that can decrease the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are numerous available articles about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Support and Service
A huge part of lift truck selection is to make sure that you maintain access to high levels of support and service. Every year, there seems to be a wider array of new players in the forklift industry. Even though they offer a nice price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not offer the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you need to be ready for major stress when the forklift goes down. Every lift truck model goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
Normally, you will want a local dealer or repair shop with a great supply of components 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 know how many parts they store. Make certain to inquire that if they do not have the part you require, where will it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer will be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Furthermore, try to get some ideas as to how many of those specific units are currently being utilized within your vicinity. This is very vital 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 may not be stocking many if any parts for them. In addition, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model too.