Bravo Edward T. It's kind of like the companies that invest in a PM program have fewer repairs and less downtime than those that don't. Why, not because of the PM's but because of the owners mentality about taking caring of the investment.
When I came into this business most of our customers were severely abusive with their forklift trucks and because of that attitude they were driven out of business because that attitude permeated the whole company.
As we all know, materials handling costs are a large percentage of the cost to get a product to market and most other costs have been cut to the bone. I believe that sometime in the near future large companies will not only lease their forklift truck fleet but they will also lease the drivers as well, all from the same company. Then they will have gotten their material handling costs under control. They will learn that the driver is absolutely the MOST expensive variable cost of forklift ownership.
So yeah, just pull a name out of a hat for the forklift truck but hire the best drivers you can find.