new logbook each month for local driver

Not quite, for my company anyway, we must submit logs weekly, and if they are more than 15 days behind the current date we get fined!

 

Actually, you DON'T have to use any "official" form. As long as the form you are using meets the requirements of FMCSR § 395.8, you're good to go.

You could even make your own log books using the graph grid in the regulations, then add the required information to it.

 

This something that happened a lot to me.
I would be off for a week at a time. Sometimes that week would be in two different months.
My company required me to hand in two different log sheets, one for each month. I had never done that before, but they insisted it was in the rules. I never looked to see if it was. I just did it simply because it wasn't difficult to do. I suspect it was simply the way the company interpreted the rules, or it made it easier for them.

 

The reason the do/did that is because by law a motor carrier is required to keep logs for 6 months unless notified by the DOT of a pending audit. It just makes filing of logs and disposal/shredding of old logs easier.

 

There's your answer. They file your records by month and anything that covers more than one month means (a little) extra work for them.

If I am off-duty for a period that occurs in more than one month, I complete one log page for each month.

 

Thanks guys, that's pretty much what I suspected.

 

I'm local and my company makes us log. It's stupid but we have to. No you do not have to start a fresh (new) book each month. However I do weather I have used all of the previous months pages or not. It just helps keep track when something comes up and you need to go back through them and you won't have day's from a new month in an old log book when I file them.

 

Thats exactly what I have done. Even the front cover, the ink if faded.

 

You can also show your local work on one page. We had a log sheet like a time card we used in the truck along with the OTR log. We still did our company time sheets in the office. We would just say past 7 days local see time sheets in the remarks section.