Most forklifts and lift trucks are available with a lot of common security features, including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will almost always have dead-man petals. In addition, some manufacturers are offering extra features such as speed controls that could decrease the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are many available articles about Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Support and Service
A big part of forklift selection is to make certain that you maintain access to high levels of support and service. Each year, there seems to be a wider array of new players in the forklift business. Even though they provide a nice price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not offer the regional or local support and service infrastructure, you must be prepared for major stress when the forklift goes down. Every model of lift truck goes down at some point and service, parts and general questions should be addressed at some point.
Usually, you would want a local repair shop or dealer with a great supply of parts for the particular make and model you are buying. Be certain 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 store. Make sure 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.
Furthermore, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular models are currently being used within your area. This is really important for specialty trucks including 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. As well, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model too.