The majority of reach trucks and forklifts are available with many common security features, such as seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will normally have dead-man petals. Additionally, some manufacturers are offering extra features like speed controls that are able to reduce the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more information, there are numerous articles available on 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 and every year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players within the lift truck business. Although they offer a good price and a decent forklift design, if they do not offer the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you need to be ready for major aggravation when the lift truck goes down. Each and every model of lift truck goes down at some point and parts, service and general questions should be answered at some point.
You will normally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a full supply of the parts you need for your specific model. Be sure to visit the repair shop or the dealership and check their parts room so as to try to know how many parts they stock. Make sure to ask that if they do not have the part you need, where will it come from? With any luck, the answer will be from a regional or local distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units currently utilized in your area. This is doubly vital 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. Also, they may have very little overall experience in servicing that model as well.