If you’re on your L’s in Victoria, you already know the number: 120 hours of supervised driving, including 10 hours at night, before you can sit your Ps test. On paper it sounds straightforward. In practice, most learners either leave it too late and end up cramming, or drive the same familiar streets over and over without building the range of experience VicRoads actually wants to see.
Here’s how to plan your 120 hours properly, so it builds real skill instead of just filling a logbook.
Start With the Maths, Not the Deadline
Work backwards from your test date. If you’re aiming to get your Ps in 12 months, that’s 120 hours over roughly 52 weeks — about 2.5 hours a week. Spread that evenly and it’s manageable alongside school, uni, or work. Left until the last two months, it becomes 15 hours a week, which is where most of the stress (and the unsafe habit of “logging” hours rather than learning from them) comes from.
A realistic weekly or fortnightly target, written down somewhere you’ll actually see it, is the single biggest thing that keeps a logbook plan on track.
Break the 120 Hours Into Skill Categories, Not Just Numbers
VicRoads’ bonus hour scheme already nudges you in the right direction — professional lessons count for three times the hours for your first 10 hours with an instructor, and driving at night earns credit too. But beyond the bonus scheme, it helps to think of your hours in categories rather than one long tally:
- Foundations — vehicle control, basic manoeuvres, quiet streets
- Traffic and intersections — roundabouts, give-way rules, lane changes
- Night driving — the required 10 hours, ideally spread across different conditions
- Highway and open-road driving — merging, higher speeds, longer trips
- Test-specific practice — the manoeuvres and routes VicRoads actually assesses
If you’re just starting out, our guide to taking your first driving lesson is a good place to see how those foundational hours are structured. As you progress, highway driving lessons and night driving lessons with an instructor are the easiest way to knock over the trickier, higher-value categories without a stressed parent in the passenger seat.
Use a Digital Logbook to Actually Track Progress
Paper logbooks get lost, forgotten in glove boxes, or filled in retrospectively (which VicRoads doesn’t love and neither should you — the hours are meant to reflect real experience). A digital logbook makes it far easier to see, at a glance, which categories you’re behind on and how many night or supervised hours you still need.
We cover how this works in more detail on our digital logbook page, including how professional lesson hours are recorded and counted toward your total.
Mix Supervised Family Driving With Professional Lessons
You don’t need to do all 120 hours with an instructor — most families split the load between a parent or supervisor and professional lessons. A good rule of thumb:
- Professional lessons for anything you haven’t done before — night driving, highways, complex intersections, or fixing a habit you know is a problem
- Supervised family driving for repetition — building confidence on routes and skills you’ve already been taught properly
This way, lessons are used to teach new skills, and family hours are used to practise them, rather than the two overlapping and wasting time.
Don’t Save Everything for the Final Month
The most common mistake is treating the logbook as a box to tick rather than genuine preparation. Learners who cram their final 30-40 hours in the weeks before their test tend to arrive underprepared for exactly the situations the test is designed to catch — merging under pressure, unfamiliar intersections, night driving fatigue. Spreading hours out means each skill has time to actually stick.
If your test date is approaching and you want to make sure your remaining hours are used efficiently, our VicRoads test preparation lessons are built specifically around this — targeting the exact routes and manoeuvres assessed on the day.
A Simple Way to Structure It
If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a straightforward split for 120 hours over 12 months:
- Months 1-3: Foundations and basic traffic — mix of first lessons and short supervised drives (roughly 30 hours)
- Months 4-6: Intersections, roundabouts, and building confidence — supervised driving with regular check-in lessons (roughly 30 hours)
- Months 7-9: Night driving and highway driving, prioritised early since they’re the categories most learners avoid (roughly 30 hours)
- Months 10-12: Test-route practice and fine-tuning weak spots (roughly 30 hours)
This isn’t a strict formula — some learners need more time on highways, others struggle more with night driving — but having a rough shape stops the whole 120 hours from becoming an end-of-year scramble.
Once You’re Ready to Move On
When your logbook is complete, and you’re feeling test-ready, the transition from L’s to P’s has its own requirements worth understanding ahead of time. Our L to P driving lessons page covers what changes once you’ve passed, including P-plate restrictions and what to expect in your first months of solo driving.
Conclusion
A 120-hour logbook doesn’t need to be stressful — it needs a plan. Spread your hours out, track them properly, mix professional lessons with family practice, and prioritise the categories (night driving, highways) that are easiest to put off. Do that consistently over 12 months, and by the time your test rolls around, you’ll have genuine experience behind the wheel — not just a logbook that says you do.
