Licensed in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
Licensed in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
Maintenance records answer a question that scene evidence cannot: whether the condition that contributed to a crash was already known to the carrier. A brake that failed is one fact. A brake written up weeks earlier and left unrepaired is a different fact, and it sits in paperwork rather than on the roadside.
Those records live on the carrier’s side of the case and expire on schedules set by federal rule. The shortest of them runs three months from the day the document was prepared.
At Lukov Injury Law, we work out which record streams apply before the clocks on them run down.
The record types are taken in order below, with what each one shows and when each disappears. Contact us today to talk through your crash.
The starting point is a duty placed on the company rather than the driver.
Under 49 CFR 396.3(a), every motor carrier “must systematically inspect, repair, and maintain, or cause to be systematically inspected, repaired, and maintained,” all motor vehicles subject to its control. Under 396.3(a)(1), parts and accessories “shall be in safe and proper operating condition at all times.”
Two words in that text carry the weight:
That is why the paperwork matters so much. A duty framed as a system is proved or disproved by whether the system produced records.
Four streams sit behind a maintenance question, and they are not interchangeable.
| Record | What It Shows | Retention Floor |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance file
49 CFR 396.3(b)
|
Identification of the vehicle, the nature and due date of inspection and maintenance operations, and a dated record of the work performed. | 1 year 396.3(c)
plus 6 months after the vehicle leaves the carrier’s control.
|
| Driver vehicle inspection report
396.11
|
A defect the driver discovered or was told about, and whether it was certified as repaired. | 3 months
from the date prepared.
|
| Periodic inspection report
396.17 and 396.21
|
That the vehicle passed its periodic inspection, at least once in the preceding 12 months. | 14 months 396.21(b)(1)
from the date of the inspection report.
|
| Duty-status records
395.8(k)(1)
|
Who was driving, and for how long, on the day in question. | 6 months
not less than, from the date of receipt.
|
Under 396.3(b) those records cover each motor vehicle the carrier controls for 30 consecutive days, which is the ordinary situation for a tractor in a fleet.
Because it has the shortest life of the four, and it is the most direct record of what the driver reported.
A driver vehicle inspection report is retained three months from the date prepared under 49 CFR 396.11. That is a quarter of the maintenance file’s floor and a fraction of Louisiana’s filing deadline.
What makes it valuable is the sequence it captures. A defect written up on one day and a certification of repair on another produce a dated record of what the carrier knew and when. A defect written up with no matching repair entry produces a different picture.
Nothing in the ordinary course obliges a carrier to keep it past the third month. Once that passes, disposal can be entirely lawful.
The failure of a component is not by itself the question.
The question is whether the condition was already documented and the repair was deferred. That is a records question, and it is answered by putting the inspection reports beside the maintenance file and reading the dates against each other.
A pattern across a fleet can matter as much as one vehicle’s file. Two patterns speak to whether the program under 396.3(a) was operating as written:
None of that can be reconstructed later from the vehicle itself. Once a tractor is repaired or sold, the paperwork is what remains.
This is the part where a common piece of advice is widely misunderstood.
A written request to a carrier does not by itself obligate that carrier in Louisiana to hold on to anything. A preservation letter is a step worth taking, and it can matter later, but treating it as protection for the evidence is a mistake, because the retention floors keep running regardless.
What does the work is speed and specificity. A request is harder to answer vaguely when it names:
Where a carrier has already disposed of records inside a retention period, that is a separate issue with its own consequences, and it is one to raise with a lawyer rather than with the carrier.
Louisiana converts a fault finding into a percentage, and that percentage determines what is recovered.
Under Civil Code article 2323 as amended by Act 15 of 2025, effective January 1, 2026, a person found 51 percent or more at fault recovers nothing, and a lower share reduces the award proportionally. Incidents before that date remain under the older pure comparative fault system.
Maintenance records move that percentage. Evidence that a carrier knew about a defect and deferred the repair shifts fault toward the company and away from the person injured.
Louisiana Civil Code article 3493.1 sets a two-year prescriptive period for most personal injury claims, running from the day the injury is sustained, for injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2024. That is far longer than three months, which is the point worth holding on to.
Where the maintenance trail decides the outcome, it does so at the point the fault percentage in a Louisiana 18-wheeler crash claim is argued.
The filing deadline gives you two years. The document that may decide the case gives you three months. At Lukov Injury Law, we work the shorter clock first, with the filing deadline tracked alongside it.
Abby Lukov handles the records request herself from our New Orleans office, and the first conversation costs nothing. Call us today at 504-315-5056 to talk through what happened and which records are still within reach.
Under 49 CFR 396.3(b), a carrier maintains records for each motor vehicle it controls for 30 consecutive days, including identification of the vehicle, the nature and due date of inspection and maintenance operations, and a dated record of the work performed. Retention is governed separately by 396.3(c).
The maintenance file under 49 CFR 396.3(c) runs one year, and six months after the vehicle leaves the carrier’s control. Driver vehicle inspection reports under 396.11 run three months from the date prepared. Duty-status records under 395.8(k)(1) run not less than six months from the date of receipt.
It is the record a driver prepares when a defect or deficiency is discovered or reported, together with whether that defect was certified as repaired. A driver does not have to prepare one where no defect is found or reported, so a report may not exist for a given day. Because it captures both the write-up and the repair on dated entries, it can show what the carrier knew and when it knew it. It is retained three months under 49 CFR 396.11.
A written request does not by itself obligate a carrier in Louisiana to hold on to records, and the federal retention floors keep running regardless. A preservation letter is still worth sending and can matter later, but it should not be treated as protection for the evidence. Speed is what protects the record.
That depends on when they were disposed of. Disposal after a retention floor has passed can be entirely lawful. Disposal inside a retention period, or after a claim was known, raises a separate issue with its own consequences, and it is one to raise with a lawyer rather than with the carrier.
A periodic inspection under 49 CFR 396.17 is the scheduled check that a vehicle has passed at least once in the preceding 12 months, and the report is kept 14 months under 396.21(b)(1). A driver’s report under 396.11 is prepared only when a defect is discovered or reported, and is kept three months.
They can, because Louisiana divides recovery by fault percentage rather than treating fault as all or nothing. Records showing the carrier deferred a known repair place part of the fault on the company. That matters under the modified comparative fault rule in Civil Code article 2323 as amended by Act 15 of 2025, effective January 1, 2026.
Louisiana Civil Code article 3493.1 allows two years for most personal injury claims, running from the day the injury is sustained, for injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2024. The records that prove a maintenance case expire much sooner, the shortest at three months, so the evidence timeline and the filing timeline are not the same thing.
Disclaimer: This article provides general information and should not be treated as legal advice. Laws change over time, and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this article or contacting Lukov Injury Law LLC. For advice about your situation, contact a qualified attorney. Time limits apply to legal claims, so do not delay in seeking legal help.
