One can find a variety of safety features which are common to certain kinds of trucks such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On the majority of stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals too. In addition, certain manufacturers are offering extra features like for instance speed controls which are able to decrease the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more information, there are many available articles about Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Service and Support
Making sure you will maintain access to high levels of service and support is a really essential part of forklift selection. There seem to be a range of new players in the lift truck business every year. Although they provide a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not provide the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you must be prepared for major stress when the forklift breaks. Each and every model of lift truck goes down at some point and parts, service and general questions would probably need to be addressed at some point.
Normally, you will want a local dealer or repair shop with a huge supply of components for the specific model and make 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 stock. Make sure to inquire that if they do not have the part you need, where will it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer will be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Additionally, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular models are presently being utilized in 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 should assume they might not be stocking many if any parts for them. Also, they can have very little overall experience in servicing that model too.