There are actually a variety of safety features which 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 too. Additionally, certain manufacturers are providing more features such as speed controls which can reduce the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are many articles available on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Support and Service
Making sure 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 within the forklift industry each year. Although they offer a nice price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not offer the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you need to be ready for significant aggravation when the forklift goes down. Every lift truck model goes down at some point and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
You will normally want to have a nearby repair shop or dealer with a complete supply of the components you require for your specific unit. Be certain to visit the dealership or the repair shop 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 part you require, where will it come from? Hopefully, the answer will be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the models currently used within your area. This is doubly vital for specialty trucks like turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being utilized in their service area that you should assume they might not be stocking many if any parts for them. In addition, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that model too.