The majority of forklifts and lift trucks come with a lot of common security features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles would normally have dead-man petals. Additionally, some manufacturers are offering extra features such as speed controls that can decrease the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more information, there are many articles available about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Support and Service
Making sure you would maintain access to high levels of service and support is a really important part of forklift selection. There seem to be a range of new players within the lift truck business each and every year. Although they provide a good price and a decent forklift design, if they do not offer the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you need to be ready for major aggravation when the lift truck goes down. Every lift truck model goes down sooner or later and parts, service and general questions would probably have to be answered at some point.
Normally, you will want a local dealer or repair shop with a great supply of components for the specific make and model you are buying. Be certain to visit the repair shop or the dealership and take a look at their parts room so as to try to know how many parts they stock. Make sure to ask that if they do not have the component you need, where will it come from? Hopefully, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.
In addition, try to get some ideas as to how many of those specific models are presently being utilized within your area. This is really important for specialty trucks including turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being used in their service area that you should assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. Also, they can have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model as well.