The majority of reach trucks and forklifts come with a lot of common security features, like seat belts on sit-down vehicles. Stand-up vehicles will usually have dead-man petals. In addition, certain manufacturers are providing more features such as speed controls which could reduce the overall speed based on steering angle and load height. For more info, there are numerous articles available on Lift Truck Safety and Loading Dock Safety.
Service and Support
A big part of forklift selection is to make sure that you maintain access to high levels of service and support. Each year, there seems to be a wider variety of new players within the forklift business. Although they provide a decent lift truck design and a nice price, if they do not provide the local or regional service and support infrastructure, you have to be ready for significant stress when the forklift breaks. Each lift truck model goes down eventually and service, parts and general questions must be answered at some point.
You will generally want to have a nearby dealer or repair shop with a full supply of the components you need for your particular model. Be sure to visit the repair shop or the dealership and take a look at 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 local or regional distribution facility.
Try to get some additional ideas on the units presently used within your area. This is doubly important 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 may have very little overall experience in servicing that model as well.