There are a range of security features that are common to particular types of trucks such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On the majority of stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals too. Furthermore, some manufacturers are providing more features such as speed controls which are able to decrease the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more info, there are many available articles about Loading Dock Safety and Lift Truck Safety.
Support and Service
A big part of lift truck selection is to make certain that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Each 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 regional or local service and support infrastructure, you have to be ready for significant stress when the forklift breaks. Every type of lift truck goes down sooner or later and service, parts and general questions will probably need to be addressed at some point.
Generally, you will want a local repair shop or dealer with a great supply of parts for the particular model and make you are buying. Be sure to visit the repair shop or the dealership and check their parts room so as to try to understand how many parts they store. Make sure to inquire that if they do not have the part you require, where will it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Furthermore, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular models are presently being utilized within your area. This is really important for specialty trucks like turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being used in their service area that you must assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. Moreover, they can have very little overall experience in servicing that model too.