Thames Valley Police has admitted for the first time that its traffic officers are given monthly targets for handing out speeding tickets.

Supt Norman Bartlett, head of the force's traffic department, has set each of his 240 officers a target of issuing a minimum of five speeding tickets at the roadside in a 30mph or 40mph zone a month.

The move has caused concern among motoring organisations.

Supt Bartlett said: "The real aim of the traffic department is to focus on reducing casualties on the road network and target criminals using the road network.

"One of the ways of achieving that is to have common monthly targets. Research has indicated that the most common causes of collisions are excess or inappropriate speed, drink-driving.

"We target these specifically in a bid to reduce casualties."

Supt Bartlett added: "We have targets for hundreds of things." He said these include reporting five seatbelt violations and discovering three invalid tax discs a month. Supt Bartlett said any officer not achieving the target regularly would be pulled in to review how they were operating, although it would not harm their career.

The speeding performance indicators was treated with caution by a leading motoring organisation. Andrew Howard, head of road safety for the AA, said: "While we are always very pleased to say that the law is the law, there are complications which come if you start to actually trap motorists.

"Once you've got a quota, people always think think in some ways it is distorting the system."

Since the traffic department was re-organised two years ago, with a four per cent reduction in staff, it has seen a four per cent increase in positive breath tests and a 44 per cent increase in the number of arrests it makes.

Supt Bartlett said a combination of work undertaken by traffic officers and the Safer Roads Campaign had seen a seven per cent fall in the number of people killed and injured on Thames Valley roads.

Under the Government-funded Safer Roads Campaign, Thames Valley can keep a proportion of the money it collects from penalty tickets, generated through cameras, to expand its speed camera system. Last year the force reclaimed £1.08m and next year hopes to pull back £2.78m.

The latest announcement comes after the Oxford Mail revealed the force plans to double the amount of penalty tickets it generates from speeding and red light cameras from 67,000 last year to 153,000 in 2001/2002. Tickets issued by officers at the roadside cannot be counted in these figures.

**Traffic wardens from Oxford-based Control Plus, who patrol the county's streets under contract to Oxfordshire County Council, do not operate on quotas.

County council parking manager John Crossley said the council took great care when the Control Plus agreement was drawn up to not allow any clauses which would allow targets to be set.