POLICE officers are being set quotas for the number of motorists they fine each month for offences such as speeding and not wearing a seatbelt. The scheme, introduced by Thames Valley police, requires each team of 5-10 traffic officers to work to the sort of targets associated with insurance salesmen.

Each month they are expected to “take three prisoners” (make three arrests), issue 10 fixed-penalty notices for speeding and fine 10 people for not wearing seatbelts. In addition, they must book three motorists for numberplate offences and fine 10 people for offences such as riding a motorbike without a helmet, overloading a vehicle or failing to stop at a red light.

The strategy, introduced over the past 18 months, has drawn criticism from beat officers and crime experts, who claim it could lead to motorists being punished for offences that might have been dealt with by a verbal warning.

“If somebody hasn’t achieved what they need to for the month, by the end of it they will be scratching around booking anything that moves because they feel under pressure to do so,” said one serving Thames Valley officer.

“Often a word of advice would have been all that was necessary, but now an officer thinks ‘If I book them, it will help me with my allocation’. If the targets aren’t met, the sergeant would be hauled over the coals and asked why not.”

News of the quotas comes as David Blunkett, the home secretary, prepares to target the most serious motoring offenders, such as drink-drivers and joyriders who kill, in tough measures to cut the number of road deaths in Britain.

This week Blunkett will announce a new 14-year maximum sentence for those causing death by dangerous driving. Some motorists who kill through drink, drugs or carelessness could serve sentences on a par with murderers.

Thames Valley’s system to crack down on more minor offenders is also designed to cut casualties on the road, but will be seen as an extreme result of the growing police focus on meeting statistical targets.

Last week Oliver Letwin, the shadow home secretary, attacked the over-emphasis on statistical yardsticks, saying they were leading to an “easy case syndrome”. He said motorists and other “essentially honest citizens” were being targeted to boost numbers while tougher cases were ignored.

“This (the Thames Valley action) is a classic case of the phenomenon to which I was drawing attention,” he said last night. “Come the end of the month, the target gives a ludicrous incentive to the police to divert attention from what may be enormously serious crimes and spend their time chasing people doing 10mph over the speed limit.”

The number of motorists given fixed-penalty notices for speeding in the Thames Valley area has risen from 62,827 in 1998 to 154,524 in 2001.

“I used to think as a young PC that driving without a seatbelt was a bit of a trivial offence, but in terms of contributing to serious injuries it’s a massive factor,” said Paul West, the force’s deputy chief constable, who insisted all arrests would be justified.

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