One can find a range of safety features which are common to certain kinds of trucks such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On most stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals also. In addition, some manufacturers are providing extra features like speed controls that could decrease the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are numerous articles available on 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. Each and every year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players in the lift truck industry. Even if they provide a good price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not provide the regional or local support and service infrastructure, you should be prepared for significant aggravation when the lift truck breaks. Each lift truck model goes down at some point and parts, service and general questions must be addressed at some point.
You will normally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a full supply of the components 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 store. Make certain to inquire that if they do not have the component you need, where will it come from? Hopefully, the answer would be from a local or regional 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 must assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. As well, they can have very little overall experience in servicing that specific model as well.