The majority of forklifts and lift trucks come with many common safety features, including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles would usually have dead-man petals. Moreover, some 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 many available articles on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Service and Support
A huge part of forklift selection is to make certain that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Each and every year, there seems to be a wider array of new players in the forklift business. Even if they offer a nice price and a decent forklift design, if they do not provide the regional or local support and service infrastructure, you must be prepared for significant aggravation when the lift truck breaks. Each lift truck model goes down at some point and parts, service and general questions would probably need to be answered at some point.
Generally, you will want a local dealer or repair shop with a great supply of parts for the particular make and model you are buying. Be sure to visit the repair shop or the dealership and check their parts room in order to try to know how many parts they store. Make certain to ask that if they do not have the component you need, where would it come from? Hopefully, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the models currently utilized in your vicinity. This is doubly 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. What's more, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model too.