edward t people buy things everyday that aren't necessary. Does someone need a BMW? No. You could buy a Honda and save money on gas, maintenance, and your initial purchase and in most cases have a more reliable car. But with a Honda you don't get the girl. In this analogy a simulator would be the BMW and the girl would be a well-trained operator. The only difference is that the girl won't save you money while the well-trained operator will.

I am in discussions about advertising on the site and was merely getting an idea of the type of traffic I should expect.

bbforks A simulator allows a potential operator to train in a realistic and safe environment with absolutely zero risk of damaging property or people. If you think a simulator would not give you almost identical training as a real forklift, it has all of the same controls (since it can be customized to any type of forklift) and has the same feedback and load restrictions as a real forklift. To your point, if you purchased a simulator for $X and during the course of a normal year the amount of damage to goods by both inexperience operators and experience operators (who might have otherwise not had an accident had they been trained more thoroughly) is $X times ten, you could assume that at least 1/10 of that could have been avoided by additional training. Obviously the numbers have to make sense, but it is a simple exercise to consider.

Besides just the $$ aspect, it reduces injuries, provides an engaging medium to train operators, and is less expensive than a worker's compensation claim.