There are actually a variety of safety features that are common to certain kinds of trucks including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On the majority of stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals also. Furthermore, 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 numerous articles available about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Service and Support
Making certain you would maintain access to high levels of support and service is a very important part of forklift selection. There seem to be a variety of new players in the forklift industry each and every year. Even if they offer a good price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not provide the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you have to be ready for significant aggravation when the forklift goes down. Every kind of lift truck goes down sooner or later and parts, service and general questions would probably have to be addressed at some point.
Normally, you will want a local repair shop or dealer with a great supply of components for the specific model and make you are buying. Be sure to visit the repair shop or the dealership and take a look at their parts room so as to try to understand how many parts they stock. Make certain to ask that if they do not have the component you require, where will it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer would be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Furthermore, try to get some ideas as to how many of those specific units are presently being utilized within your area. This is really important for specialty trucks like 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. Moreover, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model as well.