This thread originated from another one entitled:

"Country Requirements Regarding Licensing of LT Operators"

Rather than highjack someone else's thread I will start a new one. For background on my comments below and where they orginated from see the other thread first.

I would love to see the data from Toyota on SAS. I do alot of training work for the customers of a local Toyota dealer, plus many other dealers in our area, so I get to see the latest in most of the major brands. The SAS seems to be good system from what I have seen, I have no stake in Toyota, so I have no vested interests here. It has some nice functional parts like the tilt levelor and some safety features that are built in like the strut that locks the tilt on the rear axel. It says in the SAS video it is not a "anti tipover or safety guarantee" it is simply a system that reduces the consequences of human error, which are in my opinion, the cause of many forklift injuries and deaths, but is certainly not the only cause of those accidents. The 7, and now 8 series, of Toyota lifts have SAS so there are a decent number of them out worldwide now. I would never have guessed that there have been 0 fatalities on them, that is statistically significant in my mind, but the data would tell us more. The SAS system is not however, maintenance free, I do believe it needs to be inspected and sometimes adjusted during the life of the lift, plus I think there may be some type of more major service requirement at like 10,000 hours, but I can't swear to that. Someone from Toyota (the manufacturer) should come give us more detail if possible, if their system could be proven beyond a doubt to reduce tipover and other accidents, which would in turn save injures and deaths, others would follow with similar systems. Competition fuels all of this, if customers will pay for these types of system, manufacturers will deliver them to the market, if customers will not pay for them, technology will be much slower getting to market.