The majority of reach trucks and forklifts come with lots of common security features, including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will usually have dead-man petals. Additionally, certain manufacturers are providing extra features such as speed controls that can decrease the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are many articles available on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.

Support and Service
Making certain you will maintain access to high levels of support and service is a really essential part of forklift selection. There seem to be a variety of new players in the lift truck industry each year. Even though they offer a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not offer the regional or local service and support infrastructure, you should be ready for significant aggravation when the forklift breaks. Each lift truck model goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.

Normally, you would want a local dealer or repair shop with a huge supply of parts for the particular make and model you are purchasing. 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 store. Make sure to ask that if they do not have the component you need, where will it come from? With a bit of luck, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.

In addition, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular units are currently being utilized in your vicinity. This is very vital for specialty trucks including 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. Furthermore, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model as well.