You will find a range of safety features which are common to certain types of trucks including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. On most stand-up vehicles there are dead-man petals as well. Moreover, certain manufacturers are providing extra features such as speed controls which could reduce the overall speed based on load height and steering angle. For more info, 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 service and support. Every year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players within the forklift business. Even if they offer a nice price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not offer the regional or local support and service infrastructure, you should be prepared for major aggravation when the forklift goes down. Every lift truck model goes down eventually and parts, service and general questions would probably need to be answered at some point.
Normally, you would want a local dealer or repair shop with a great supply of components for the specific model and make you are purchasing. Be certain to visit the repair shop or the dealership and check their parts room in order to try to understand how many parts they store. Make certain to inquire that if they do not have the part you require, where will it come from? With any luck, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Additionally, try to get some ideas as to how many of those particular models are presently being utilized in your vicinity. This is really vital for specialty trucks like 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 could have very little overall experience in servicing that model too.