There are actually a range of security features that are common to particular kinds of trucks such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On most stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals as well. Furthermore, some manufacturers are providing extra features like for example speed controls that can reduce the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are many available articles about Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Support and Service
A big part of forklift selection is to make sure that you maintain access to high levels of support and service. Each year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players in the forklift industry. Even though they provide a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not offer the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you have to be prepared for significant aggravation when the forklift goes down. Each type of lift truck goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions will probably have to be addressed at some point.
Normally, you would want a local dealer or repair shop with a huge supply of parts for the particular model and make you are buying. 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 inquire that if they do not have the component you require, where will it come from? Hopefully, the answer would be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Additionally, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular models are currently being used within your area. This is really vital for specialty trucks including 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. Additionally, they can have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model too.