Concern over car crime 'targets'

Drivers could suffer due to police quotas setting out the number of fines officers must issue each month, motoring groups say.

The RAC and AA have expressed concern at newspaper reports that Thames Valley Police has set targets for offences such as speeding and not wearing seatbelts.

The Sunday Times said each month officers are expected to make three arrests, issue 10 fixed-penalty notices for speeding and fine 10 people for not wearing seatbelts.

No-one at Thames Valley Police was available to comment.

Motorists will become very suspicious... that it is to raise revenue and not to improve road safety

Rebecca Rees, the AA

Motoring organisations said police should instead be targeting the hard core of drivers who drive while drunk or on drugs or who persistently break speed limits.

Edmund King of the RAC Foundation said: "There is a fear that if they are going out of their way to catch 10 people without seatbelts then they will miss the tail-gater, the drink driver or the drug-driver, the more serious offenders who are really causing mayhem on the streets."

'Easy targets'

He pointed to recent Home Office research which showed the most dangerous drivers were more likely to commit serious crime like burglary, rape and murder, making it even more important for police to target them.

AA Motoring Trust spokeswoman Rebecca Rees said drivers needed reassuring that police were not just going for easy targets to boost their figures.

She said: "Motorists will become very suspicious, if this is the case, that it is to raise revenue and not to improve road safety."

The article said the traffic strategy had been criticised by beat officers, who fear motorists could be punished for offences that could have been dealt with by a verbal warning.