The majority of forklifts and lift trucks are available with lots of common security features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles would usually have dead-man petals. Furthermore, some manufacturers are providing more features like for instance speed controls that are able to decrease the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are many available articles about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Support and Service
Making certain you would maintain access to high levels of service and support is a very vital 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 good price, if they do not provide the regional or local support and service infrastructure, you should be prepared for major aggravation when the lift truck goes down. Each and every lift truck model goes down sooner or later and service, parts and general questions should be answered at some point.
You will generally want to have a nearby repair shop or dealer with a full supply of the parts you need for your specific unit. Be certain to visit the dealership or the repair shop and check their parts room in order to try to know how many parts they stock. Make certain to inquire that if they do not have the part you require, where will 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 units currently utilized within 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 must assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. What's more, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that model too.