There are actually 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 as well. In addition, certain manufacturers are providing extra features such as speed controls which could reduce the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are numerous available articles about Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Service and Support
A big part of forklift selection is to make sure that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Every year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players in the forklift industry. Even though 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 should be prepared for major stress when the lift truck goes down. Each and every model of lift truck goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
You will usually want to have a nearby repair shop or dealer with a complete supply of the components you need for your specific unit. Be sure to visit the dealership or the repair shop and check their parts room in order to try to understand how many parts they store. Make certain to ask that if they do not have the part you require, where would it come from? With any luck, the answer would be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the models presently utilized within your area. This is doubly vital for specialty trucks such as 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. What's more, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model as well.