Most forklifts and lift trucks are available with many common safety features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles would normally have dead-man petals. Moreover, certain manufacturers are offering extra features like speed controls that are able to decrease the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are many articles available on Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Service and Support
Making certain you will maintain access to high levels of service and support is a hugely important part of forklift selection. There seem to be a range of new players in the forklift industry every year. Even though they provide a decent lift truck design and a good price, if they do not offer the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you should be ready for major stress when the forklift breaks. Each lift truck model goes down at some point and service, parts and general questions will probably have to be answered at some point.
You will usually want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a full supply of the parts you require for your particular unit. Be certain to visit the dealership or the repair shop and check 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 would it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units currently used within your vicinity. This is doubly vital for specialty trucks such as turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being used 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 specific model too.