The first move in an abnormal load job is not the escort briefing or the shunt out of the yard. It is a clock starting, days earlier, in an inbox at a police force and a bridge authority. The Road Vehicles (Authorisation of Special Types) (General) Order 2003 - STGO to everyone moving wide or heavy kit - builds the whole job around notice periods, and the operator who plans from the move date backwards gets it right. The one who books the crane first and checks the calendar after does not.
For most STGO movements, notice must go to the chief officer of police for each area the vehicle or combination will pass through. The timing is exact: the notice must be received before the beginning of the period of two days that ends immediately before the date of use. Read that carefully. It is not “two working days before” in the casual sense; the notice has to be in the force’s hands before the two-day window that closes the day before the move. A Monday move wants the notice landed well before the weekend, not sent on Friday afternoon and hoped over.
Some movements get a shorter fuse. Notices given under the specific provisions the Order lists - certain articles covering particular vehicle uses - must be received before the beginning of the period of 24 hours ending immediately before the date of use. And in every case, the chief officer of police for an area may accept a shorter period of notice. That discretion is real, and forces use it, but it is a favour built on relationship and track record, not an entitlement to plan around.
The second clock runs to the authorities responsible for the structures on the route. Here the weight of the job sets the deadline. Where the vehicle or combination has a gross weight exceeding 80,000 kilograms, the notice must be received by each authority before the beginning of the period of five days that ends immediately before the date of use. Below that line, the period is two days. As with the police, an authority may accept a shorter period - again, discretion, not entitlement.
The authority notice carries a companion document: the indemnity. The Order allows the indemnity to be given for a particular journey, or, where the authority agrees in writing, for any journey made during a period of one year or less starting on the date the indemnity is given. For operators running repeat heavy moves over the same structures, the annual indemnity is one of the most useful instruments in the whole Order: one agreement in writing, and the per-journey paperwork shrinks to the notice itself.
The Order is not satisfied with a phone call saying “big load Tuesday”. The notice must be in a form acceptable to the recipient, agreed by both parties, and its contents are prescribed: a list of all the police forces or authorities to which notice is given, details of the user of the vehicle, and the particulars of the movement. And once the notice is given, the use of the vehicle has to accord with it - the notified route and details are the job you are authorised to run, not a rough suggestion.
Nobody faxes forty forces any more. The Electronic Service Delivery for Abnormal Loads system - ESDAL - exists to run this process: it lets a haulier plan the route and check its suitability, get the full details of every organisation and authority that must be notified before travel, submit the notifications, receive advance warning of possible route problems, and save vehicle details and routes for the next time. Police, road and bridge authorities use the same system from the other side to manage notifications and check routes.
One timing point catches new users: you must register with ESDAL before you can use it, and the registration takes two to three working days to process. The operator who discovers ESDAL on the day the customer’s machine is ready to ship has just found an unofficial third notice period. Register before you need it; the account costs nothing and sits ready.
The practical routine writes itself. Fix the intended date of use - the Order’s own term for the day the road use begins. Walk back the five days for the over-80-tonne authority notices, or two days below that weight and for the police. Walk back further for the jobs that need route surveys, attendant arrangements or a special order because the load sits beyond STGO’s general authorisation. Then check whether any recipient has agreed shorter notice in writing for the specific movement, and file that agreement with the job.
What the clock forbids is the casual shuffle. Move the job a day later and the notices may no longer match the date of use; change the route and the list of forces and authorities changes with it. The paperwork is not decoration around the move - under STGO, the notified movement is the authorised movement.
The operators who make abnormal work look easy are the ones whose transport office treats the notice periods as the first booking of the job, not the last. Five days, two days, date of use: learn the numbers, build the calendar backwards, and let ESDAL do the carrying.