The majority of reach trucks and forklifts are available with many common safety features, such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles would normally have dead-man petals. In addition, some manufacturers are providing more features like speed controls that could reduce the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are many articles available on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Service and Support
A huge part of lift truck selection is to make sure that you maintain access to high levels of support and service. Every year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players within the forklift business. Even though they offer a decent lift truck design and a good price, if they do not provide the local or regional service and support infrastructure, you must be ready for significant aggravation when the forklift goes down. Every type of lift truck goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions should be answered at some point.
You will generally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a complete supply of the components you require for your particular model. Be certain to visit the dealership or the repair shop and check their parts room so as to try to know how many parts they stock. Make sure to inquire that if they do not have the part you require, where would it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer would be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Moreover, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular units are currently being utilized within your vicinity. This is very important for specialty trucks including 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. Moreover, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that model as well.