How long a trucking company keeps driver logs

Six months is the federal minimum, not a suggestion

49 CFR 395.8(k) requires a motor carrier to keep records of duty status and the supporting documents for those records for six months after receiving them. Supporting documents are the bills of lading, dispatch records, fuel receipts, and other records that verify the log. After six months, many carriers destroy them on a schedule. That is why this row is the one that most often ages out before anyone writes a letter.

The six-month clock is not a permission slip after a claim is in view. Once a carrier has notice that the logs matter to a claim, the duty to preserve can attach under ordinary evidence law even if the federal minimum has run. The evidence page on this site separates those two ideas on purpose.

ELDs changed the format, not the duty

Most interstate carriers use an electronic logging device under 49 CFR 395.22. The ELD produces the record of duty status. The vendor often holds a longer archive than the carrier does. There is no single federal period that forces every vendor to keep ELD data for a set number of years. Vendor contracts vary. Write the vendor as well as the carrier.

Paper logs still exist for some operations. The same six-month rule applies. If the driver was operating under an exception (short-haul, agriculture, adverse driving conditions), the supporting documents become more important because the RODS themselves may be thinner.

Put the crash date against the clock

Enter the crash date on the evidence tool. If you are already past six months, treat logs as a vendor-and-letter problem, not a waiting-for-the-carrier problem. If you are inside six months, send the letter anyway. The minimum is the floor the regulation requires, not a plan for how a company will handle a known claim.