Most forklifts and lift trucks are available with many common safety features, including seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will normally have dead-man petals. Additionally, certain manufacturers are offering extra features such as speed controls which are able to reduce the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are many available articles about Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Service and Support
Making sure you would maintain access to high levels of service and support is a really important part of forklift selection. There seem to be a range of new players in the lift truck industry each and every year. Even though they provide a nice price and a decent lift truck design, if they do not provide the local or regional support and service infrastructure, you need to be ready for significant stress when the lift truck goes down. Each and every model of lift truck goes down eventually and parts, service and general questions should be answered at some point.
You would normally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a complete supply of the components you need for your particular model. Be sure to visit the repair shop or the dealership and check 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 need, where will it come from? Hopefully, the answer will be from a local or regional distribution facility.
Additionally, try to get some ideas as to how many of those specific models are presently being utilized within your area. This is really important for specialty trucks including turret trucks. If there are only a small amount of trucks being used in their service area that you must assume they may not be stocking many if any parts for them. What's more, they could have very little overall experience in servicing that particular model as well.