HONOLULU -- The Honolulu Police Department said it does not have quotas for speeding tickets, but rather "flexible goals" that officers are supposed to achieve depending on how many other issues they are dealing with on any given shift.

The rank-and-file officers who spoke to KITV asked for anonymity because they said they'd be disciplined for speaking out. Those officers said they have never had a specific requirement for how many speeding tickets they have to give out per hour until last October.

Since the middle of October, traffic enforcement officers said supervisors have required them to ticket four motorists an hour for speeding during the three hours they usually spend on traffic enforcement. That's 12 speeding tickets required per motorcycle officer per shift and officers said they feel that's a quota.

Not so, said HPD's spokesman.

"There's a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration: weather's bad, they have different assignments, if there's a big motor vehicle collision," said Maj. Frank Fujii, with HPD.

KITV has obtained an internal HPD memo that says: "For each hour of enforcement, the officer is expected to issue the number of speeding citations as set by the command."

"Officers are evaluated on the totality of their performance and the number of citations that they issue is going to be one of those measuring sticks. I think the general public would expect that of us," Fujii said.

Officers told KITV the policy is an over-reaction to a small number of officers who were not working hard enough on speeding enforcement.

Four speeding tickets an hour may not seem like much. But officers said chasing down a speeding motorist, talking to him, writing out a ticket, checking with dispatchers to make sure the vehicle has updated taxes and safety permits and then driving back to their speed trap can take at least 15 minutes.

Sources said at least a half-dozen officers have already received verbal warnings for failing to keep up with the quotas and the HPD memo says they could face further discipline for failing to meet what it calls "standards" for traffic enforcement, including loss of special duty privileges and loss of their department take-home vehicles.

Officers worried about falling short of the quota have begun giving people tickets for driving not far over the speed limit, causing one defense attorney to respond.

"It almost seems to be verging on the ridiculous," defense attorney Patrick McPherson said.

Island Television News at 10 p.m. will show just how little drivers have to speed to get a ticket because of the new policy.