Self Escorting or Private escorting of Abnormal Loads is now an acceptable part of the transport business. It is worth reflecting on the route that has brought the industry to this point, as the path has been long and tortuous.

It was in June 1990 that the Thames Valley Police published a report by PC D Martin on the 'The Future for the Police with Abnormal Loads'. The 160 page publication provided an analysis of the whole spectrum of Notifications, load markings and numbers of escorts done, together with the costs to Police Forces of providing this service.

The report highlighted the fact that in law a police escort is not legally required, but is provided as a duty of care for other road users and not as a service to the transport company.  This was one of the contributory factors for many delays that could be experienced by hauliers, as escorting was not at the top of the list of priorities in policing duties.

Following this report, a trial was carried out using private escorts in unmarked police cars and the results proved satisfactory. The trial proved that considerable time was saved by having continuous escort on longer routes, rather than waiting for separate escorts from each individual force area as the load progressed along the route.

ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) had a working committee on this matter that progressed slowly and the HTA, who had, by this time, formed a ‘self-escort’ sub-committee, worked on producing an escort manual.  Preparation of this manual was helped by analysing the Dutch escort system, as they had recently switched to private escorting.  The ACPO committee approved the manual produced by the HTA and, in 1994, the Home Office called together representatives from the Heavy Haulage industry for a meeting to discuss the way forward for private escorting on motorways and Linked Dual Carriageways.  The result was that the consultants were called in, a report made at great cost - and then nothing more was done….

Time passed, and in 1998 another set of consultants (EDMC), who admitted knowing nothing about the Abnormal Loads industry, held several meetings with the various representatives, before producing a report that had most of us grabbing for our dictionaries in order to comprehend it.

More time passed, and it seemed all was lost, except for the fact that the review of the STGO Regulations had some amendments to the law on attendants, which was to pave the way forward for private escorting. No longer was it necessary for the attendant to be in the lorry – he/she could 'attend' in an escort vehicle. The amendments became law on 1st August 2003 and it seemed no time at all before Warwickshire Police, who had always been one of the driving forces in this matter, announced that with effect from 1st January 2004, they would no longer be routinely escorting Abnormal Loads in their county.  This would apply to all roads, not just motorways and linked dual carriageways as we had been previously led to believe.

This announcement caught many on the hop and it was a case of 'follow the leader' for most of the other forces.  In fact this was to take up to a year to spread across the country, while Scotland held fast and continued as before.  The Highways Agency was even further behind the forces as they were not ready with escort vehicle and driver standards, announcing a 6 month consultation period for industry commencing November 2003. It was not until July 2004 that the code of practice for escort vehicles was published, by which time, private or self-escorting of loads was well under way.

It has not gone without notice that the contents of the HTA Manual have been widely used in the code of practice and this must alone indicate that the HTA got their sums right.

At the final meeting with the HA, representatives of the HTA and ALEN were alone in insisting that the HA should re-visit the code of practice after a year in order to decide whether the code is working as envisaged.

When the code was finally published, it was disappointing to those who had spent a considerable amount of time helping with its preparation, to discover that there was still little or no control over the standard of the escort driver or the escort vehicle. To support the standards that it helped to create, the HTA backed the formation of the Abnormal Load Escort Network (ALEN), which was set up to ensure that all members were working towards the standards of the code. Each member has a certificate of conformity to help prove this to their clients and in some case Police patrols who, unbelievably, are still unaware that self-escorting is now standard practice.

We had hoped that whatever system was introduced would have some legal backing, but it became clear that the only way this issue was going to move forward was with a voluntary code of conduct. This was because of the lack of Parliamentary time to effect the necessary primary changes to legislation.

It is to the credit of those involved in the escorting of abnormal loads that there has been no major reported incident which could be attributed to the escort vehicles to date.  However, it is apparent that there are many escort operators who are ignoring the code completely and we must strive to eliminate these operators as they may well bring the system into disrepute over a period of time.

So what is the way forward? Obviously, we must conform fully to the code and give it the best chance of succeeding.  If it is proved to work, then there must be a good chance of it being legally adopted, which, in the long run, must be our aim.