Most Australian states require between 50 and 120 hours of supervised driving before a learner can sit the practical test. Every hour goes in the logbook. And nobody really explains how to keep on top of it all across 12 months of drives to school, Woolies, footy training, and everywhere else.

Here’s how it works.

Why You Need a Logbook

Your licensing authority wants proof your learner has the required hours before they’ll let them sit the test. A learner with 30 hours of real experience is a fundamentally different driver from one with 120. The logbook is the evidence.

Your logbook needs to show:

Date of each practice session
Start and end time
Start and end odometer reading (most states)
Total duration
Whether it was day or night
Supervisor’s name, licence number, and signature

Some states ask for road type or weather conditions too. Check your state’s specific format.

The Paper Logbook Problem

Most families start with the paper booklet from their licensing authority. Grid layout: date, time in, time out, odometer, supervisor, signature.

Paper logbooks are terrible.

They get lost. They get water-damaged. You forget to fill them in, then try to remember last Thursday’s details on Sunday. Your supervisor signs three weeks of entries in one sitting and the handwriting looks suspicious.

The biggest issue: maths errors. Adding up hours across hundreds of entries, splitting day and night totals, keeping a running count. One wrong addition and your numbers are off when you hand it in at the licensing centre. Read our detailed paper vs app comparison.

What Actually Works

The best system runs in the background. You start driving, it starts tracking. You stop, it stops. No writing, no calculating, no remembering.

Moda does exactly this. Tap start when a drive begins, tap stop when it ends. It logs the time, duration, and whether it’s day or night automatically using your location’s sunset data. Running totals update in real time. When you’ve hit your required hours, export a complete logbook PDF.

But even if you don’t use an app, these principles apply:

Log immediately. Not later. Not tonight. The moment the drive ends. Set a phone reminder if you need one.

Be specific. Write actual start and end times. Round to the nearest 5 minutes if you must, but don’t estimate half-hour blocks from memory.

Track day and night from the start. NSW, VIC, and ACT require 20 night hours. If you don’t split these out early, you’ll be scrambling months later trying to figure out which 6pm drives happened after sunset and which didn’t.

Record the odometer. Most state logbooks require start and end readings. Check it before you start the car and again when you park. Make it a habit.

Don’t backfill. If you forgot to log a drive from two weeks ago, it’s gone. Reconstructing details from memory makes your whole logbook less reliable. Move on and be consistent going forward.

The Supervisor’s Role

Every entry needs a supervisor’s confirmation. In most states, the supervisor must:

Hold a full (not provisional) Australian licence
Have held that licence for a minimum period (varies by state)
Sit in the front passenger seat during the entire drive
Sign the logbook entry

State/Territory	Supervisor Licence Requirement
NSW	Full licence, held for at least 2 years
Victoria	Full licence, held for at least 2 years
Queensland	Open licence, held for at least 1 year
South Australia	Full licence, held for at least 2 years
Western Australia	Full licence, held for at least 4 years
Tasmania	Full licence, held for at least 2 years
ACT	Full licence, held for at least 2 years
Northern Territory	Full licence, held for at least 2 years

Both parents can supervise. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings too, as long as they meet the requirements. More supervisors means more opportunities to drive.

Instructor Bonus Hours

Most states count lessons with a licensed driving instructor at a bonus rate. In NSW, QLD, SA, and the ACT, one instructor hour equals three logbook hours (capped at 30 bonus hours in most states). Tasmania gives two-for-one.

Ten hours of paid lessons in NSW equals 30 logbook hours. That’s a quarter of the 120-hour requirement from about $700 of lessons.

VIC, WA, and the NT don’t offer bonus hours. Every hour is one hour.

Full guide to instructor bonus hours.

Night Hours

Night is defined as sunset to sunrise in every state. Simple in theory. Complicated in practice because sunset shifts throughout the year.

In Sydney, sunset ranges from 4:54pm in winter to 8:08pm in summer. A 7pm drive is a night drive in June and a daylight drive in January. If you’re tracking on paper, you’re supposed to check sunset times for your area every session. Nobody does this consistently.

Moda handles this automatically using GPS-based sunset data. If you’re using paper, bookmark the Bureau of Meteorology sunrise/sunset page and check before logging each drive. Full guide to night driving hours.

Getting Through 120 Hours

120 hours sounds like a mountain. Spread it out and it’s about 10 hours a month for a year. That’s one 30-minute drive most days, or two longer drives on weekends plus a few short trips during the week.

Errands count. The drive to Woolies, the dentist, a mate’s house. Supervised driving is supervised driving.
Weekend trips. A 2-hour drive up the coast knocks out a big chunk.
School runs. 15 minutes each way, twice daily. That’s nearly 2.5 hours a week from school trips alone.
Mix it up. Highways, suburban streets, city driving, country roads, rain, night. Variety builds skill and keeps things from getting stale.

Build driving practice into your normal routine. It shouldn’t be a separate activity you have to schedule.

Submitting Your Logbook

When you’ve hit your state’s required hours, present your logbook when booking or attending the driving test. The specifics:

NSW: Present at Service NSW when booking your driving test. Roundtrip or paper accepted. Third-party app PDFs accepted at most centres.
VIC: Bring to your driving test appointment. VicRoads may verify entries.
QLD: Present when applying for your P1 licence at Queensland Transport.
SA: Bring to your practical test appointment at Service SA.
TAS: Present when booking through Service Tasmania.
WA: Bring to your practical assessment at the licensing centre.
ACT: Present at Access Canberra for your practical test.
NT: Bring to MVR when applying for your provisional licence.

A clean, accurate logbook with correct totals gets processed without questions. A messy one with crossed-out entries and dodgy maths creates problems you don’t want at the finish line.

Start tracking from day one. Be consistent. Use a system that doesn’t rely on your memory. You’ll thank yourself 12 months from now.

Track your logbook hours the easy way.