There are actually a range of safety features that are common to particular kinds of trucks including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On most stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals too. Additionally, some manufacturers are providing more features like for example speed controls which are able to reduce the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are many available articles about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Support and Service
A huge part of lift truck selection is to make certain that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Every year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players within the lift truck industry. Although they provide a good price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not offer the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you must be ready for significant stress when the forklift goes down. Every lift truck model goes down eventually and parts, service and general questions must be addressed at some point.
You would generally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a complete supply of the parts you need for your specific model. Be certain 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 sure to inquire that if they do not have the part you require, where would it come from? Hopefully, the answer would be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units currently used in your area. This is doubly essential for specialty trucks such as turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks in use in their service area that you should assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. In addition, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that model as well.