Often, yes. Records from a truck’s electronic logging device that appear to be erased are frequently still recoverable, because a carrier whose drivers use those devices must keep a backup copy on a separate device for six months and may not erase the original data. What decides the outcome is speed. Once that six-month window closes, the federal retention rules stop setting a period for keeping the file. Our North Dakota truck accident attorneys at Pringle & Herigstad, P.C. work to secure electronic evidence while it still exists.
What a Truck’s Logging Device Actually Records
An electronic logging device is not a digital version of a paper logbook. It connects to the engine and captures information without relying on the driver. Federal regulations require it to record:
- The date
- The time
- The geographic location of the truck
- Engine hours
- Vehicle miles
- The identity of the person logged in
- The vehicle
- The motor carrier
Those entries are not limited to the moments when a driver changes duty status. While the truck is moving, the device creates an automatic intermediate recording at least once an hour. It also captures every engine power up and power down, every login and logout, and every malfunction it detects or clears. These federal rules exist to make hours-of-service data accurate, which is why that data can be so revealing after a crash.
The result is a timestamped, hour-by-hour picture of a truck’s movement in the hours before a collision. If a driver had been at the wheel longer than the 11 hours federal rules allow most truck drivers, or had pushed past eight hours of driving without the 30-minute interruption most drivers must take, the device recorded it.
Why Deleted Logs Are Often Still Recoverable
Deleted does not mean gone, and federal rules for carriers whose drivers use electronic logs include three safeguards.
First, the law requires a second copy. Such a carrier must keep a backup copy of the logging device records for six months, and the rule requires that copy to sit on a device separate from the one holding the original data. Wiping the device in the cab does not reach a copy held somewhere else.
Second, erasure is prohibited. A carrier may not alter or erase the original hours-of-service information, the source data streams behind it, or the information held in any logging device that uses that original data and those source streams. A carrier may not permit or require anyone else to do it either.
Third, edits leave a trail. A driver has to review each day’s record and certify that it is true and correct. A carrier can only propose a change; the driver must confirm or reject it; every change or addition must be annotated; and the driver must recertify the record afterward. Unassigned time is not erased either. When nobody is logged in and the truck moves, the device books that time to an unidentified driver account, and the carrier must keep those records for at least six months.
None of this guarantees recovery in a given case. It does mean that a written preservation demand, a subpoena, and a forensic look at the carrier’s systems can produce records a company described as unavailable.
The Six-Month Window Is Shorter Than Your Deadline to Sue
Here is the trap that catches families. A carrier must keep records of duty status and the supporting documents behind them for at least six months from the date of receipt, and a separate six-month duty covers the backup copy. After that, the federal retention rules stop setting a period for holding the file.
North Dakota gives injured people much more time to bring a case. Most personal injury claims carry a six-year limitation unless another statute sets a different period, and a claim for a death caused by injuries must be brought within two years of the date of death. Waiting even a fraction of that time can leave you with a live lawsuit and no electronic proof to support it. Understanding how long a carrier must keep a driver’s duty records matters more than the filing deadline in the first months after a crash, because the retention duty can lapse long before the deadline arrives.
Other Trucking Records That Corroborate the Logs
Logging device data rarely stands alone, and the surrounding paperwork often carries equal weight. A truck accident investigation usually seeks several categories of records that carriers are required to keep:
- Supporting documents generated or received in the normal course of business for each 24-hour period, including bills of lading, dispatch and trip records, expense receipts tied to on-duty time, fleet management messages, and payroll or settlement sheets.
- The driver qualification file, which holds, among other items, the employment application, driving records from the licensing authority, road test certification, the annual review of the driving record, and the medical examiner’s certificate.
- Inspection, repair, and maintenance records for each vehicle the carrier controls for 30 consecutive days or more, kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained for one year and for six months after the vehicle leaves the carrier’s control.
- Records of unidentified driving time that the carrier reviewed, annotated, or assigned to a driver.
Read together, these documents either confirm the logs or expose them. A payroll record showing miles the logs do not account for, or a dispatch message timed hours after a driver went off duty, can be more persuasive than the log entry itself. With narrow exceptions, a carrier need not keep more than eight supporting documents for a single driver’s 24-hour period, which is one more reason the early demand matters.
Not every useful electronic record sits inside the logging device. Many tractors carry an engine control module or event data recorder, often called a black box, that can capture speed, braking, and throttle data from the moments around a collision. Many fleets also run forward-facing or driver-facing cameras and GPS tracking.
Some of that material overlaps with the fleet management records listed above, and some of it sits outside the federal retention rules entirely, which means survival can depend on the carrier’s practice and on how quickly a preservation demand arrives. Witness accounts and the law enforcement crash report do the same corroborating work in a truck case that they do in an ordinary car accident claim.
What to Do After a Truck Crash in North Dakota
Protecting electronic evidence starts with steps you can take in the first days, before anyone knows which records will decide the case. A short list covers most of it:
- Get medical care and follow through on the treatment your doctor recommends
- Request the law enforcement crash report and keep a copy
- Photograph the vehicles, the scene, and the visible damage before repairs begin
- Write down the carrier name, the USDOT number on the door, the truck and trailer numbers, and the names of any witnesses
- Decline to give a recorded statement to the trucking company’s insurer until you have spoken with a lawyer
- Call a lawyer quickly, so a written preservation demand naming the logging device data, the back-up copy, and the supporting documents reaches the carrier while those records still exist
None of these steps requires a legal background. Taken together in the first weeks, they can be the difference between a case built on electronic proof and a case built on memory.
Talk to a North Dakota Truck Accident Lawyer Before the Records Are Gone
If you were hurt, or if you lost someone you love in a collision with a commercial truck, the electronic record of that truck’s final hours sits under retention duties measured in months, not years. We move quickly to demand it, and we know which records to name.
Our attorneys handle truck accident, personal injury, and wrongful death claims across North Dakota from offices in Minot and Grand Forks. Our firm has represented injured North Dakotans since 1909. Contact us for a free consultation. We work on contingency, so you owe nothing unless we recover for you.