The majority of forklifts and lift trucks come with many common security features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will usually have dead-man petals. Additionally, certain manufacturers are offering more features like for example speed controls that can decrease the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more info, there are many articles available 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 important part of lift truck selection. There seem to be a range of new players within the lift truck industry every year. Even though they provide a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not provide the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you should be ready for significant aggravation when the forklift goes down. Each and every kind of lift truck goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions would probably need to be addressed at some point.
You will generally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a full supply of the parts you need for your specific model. Be sure to visit the dealership or the repair shop 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 any luck, the answer would be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units presently 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 could have very little overall experience in servicing that model as well.