Behind many wide loads comes a second vehicle with a beacon and a board - the escort. It looks like ceremony; it is actually a legal role with defined duties, defined triggers and defined equipment. Operators stepping into wider STGO work need to know when an attendant or escort is mandatory, what the escort vehicle must do, and where the line sits between the haulier’s own escort and the police’s.
The Special Types enforcement guide sets the trigger plainly: an attendant is required where the vehicle width exceeds 3.5 metres. That is the headline, and it is a hard edge - a load at 3.4 metres runs without; a load at 3.5 metres plus a coat of paint runs with. The attendant’s job is to manage the load’s interface with the world: watching clearances, signalling other traffic, and walking the tricky sections when the driver cannot see the problem.
The attendant can travel in the moving vehicle, or in an escort vehicle - and the escort-vehicle option comes with its own conditions: the attendant must be in radio contact with the vehicle concerned and able to see it during the journey, as far as is reasonably practical. An escort car that loses sight of its load round a bend is an escort in name only, and the guide’s wording closes that door deliberately.
The escort vehicle has its own specification: the amber beacon warning other traffic, the marking that identifies it as an escort, and the equipment the attendant needs for the physical work - signs to display, measures for clearances, and the means to stop or direct other road users where the route demands. The guide also deals with the driver’s visibility: a camera system can substitute for mirrors only where the driver can clearly see to the side and rear of the load - and where the view is not clear, the STGO answer is an additional rear-steer driver on the combination or a police escort, not wishful thinking.
Most category work uses the haulier’s own attendant and escort vehicle; police escorts are reserved for the genuinely big movements - the loads whose dimensions, route or risk make civilian escort insufficient - and are arranged and charged through the relevant force, with lead times to match. The special-order world, above 150 tonnes or 6.1 metres wide, is where police involvement becomes the norm rather than the exception. The practical point for operators: the escort question is a quote-stage question. The job priced without the attendant, the escort vehicle or the police fee is priced wrong.
Width over 3.5 metres means an attendant; an attendant in an escort vehicle means radio contact and the load in sight. The escort is a working role with legal conditions, not a courtesy car - spec it, brief it, and price it at quote stage, because on the day, the load does not move without it.
The escort vehicle is only as good as the person driving it, and the craft is specific: positioning ahead to warn oncoming traffic on narrow sections, dropping back to cover the load’s overhang on the blind side, reading the route notes for the pinch points the load’s crew cannot see, and keeping the radio discipline that makes ‘stop’ mean stop in one syllable. The attendant walking a bridge or a tight gateway is the load’s eyes where the driver has none - the guide’s visibility rules exist because the whole system fails when the escort cannot see the vehicle it serves. Good escort crews are made on the routine jobs: the Category 2 runs where the radio checks, the positioning and the walking drill become habit before the day the special order needs them flawless. Operators building abnormal-load capability should treat escort training as part of the product, not an afterthought bolted to the quote.
Over 3.5 metres wide: attendant required. In an escort vehicle: radio contact, load in sight. Police for the genuinely big movements. Price all of it at quote stage - the escort is part of the load’s legality, not an optional extra, and the movement cannot leave without what the rules attach to it.
The escort’s authority comes from the movement’s paperwork, and it should physically ride along: the notification record or the order, the route schedule, and the conditions attached by the authorities - carried in the escort vehicle as well as the cab, because the escort crew are the ones dealing with the world at the roadside. When a stop happens - police, DVSA, an authority’s inspector - the escort who can produce the movement’s documents turns a roadside examination into a five-minute confirmation. The crew that left the papers at the depot turns it into the load parked while someone fetches them. In abnormal work the escort is the movement’s public face; the file in its glovebox is what makes that face credible.
Width decides the attendant, radio and sight decide the escort, and the quote decides whether the job was ever profitable. Escorting is a legal role with a craft to it - treat both halves seriously and the wide loads move like clockwork.