open contact 100 and therefore allowing power to be applied to the circuit from the battery 96 referring now to fig1 in operation controller 106 monitors input signals from each of the control switches 36 and 37 and based on the states of these switches allows drive initially upon activation of the key switch 74 step 110 the controller 106 monitors both the switches 36 and 37 to determine whether both switches 36 and 37 are off step 112 and the truck 10 is therefore in the top brake mode 116 if not the controller keeps the brake applied 84 and provides an error message on the display 72 the controller 106 then goes into a delay mode preventing further action by the truck 10 until the tiller arm 22 is returned to the vertical position 114 and re enters the top brake mode 116 referring now to fig9 and 10 when both switches 36 and 37 are off the pallet truck 10 enters the top brake state 116 from the top brake mode 116 the controller 106 monitors the states of the switches 36 and 37 as described above during operation the cammed surfaces 30 and 32 assure that barring a failure state transitions occur in a given order specifically from top brake 116 0 0 to slow mode 0 1 120 to fast mode 1 1 122 to bottom brake 1 0 124 as the tiller arm 22 is moved from the substantially vertical to the substantially horizontal position in the driving arc from the.