HONOLULU -- Many people said they think if they don't go more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit police will not give them a ticket. But a KITV investigation has revealed new ticket quotas at the Honolulu Police Department have some officers writing speeding tickets to drivers going just a few miles per hour over the limit.

Since October, police officers in the traffic enforcement division told KITV they have been required to give four speeding tickets an hour. To keep up with that quota, some officers said they're ticketing motorists for driving only a few miles over the speed limit.

Kaneohe Marine Ray Zimmerman, just back from the Iraq War, knows about that first hand.

"It just didn't make sense. It was absurd," Zimmerman said.

He said he was driving his Saab toward town on the H-3 Freeway on Nov. 14 on his way to celebrate his 22nd birthday, with his wife and infant son, when a motorcycle officer gave him a ticket for going just seven miles over the speed limit.

The H-3 speed limit decreases from 60 to 55 and then to 45 miles an hour just before the onramps to the H-1 going downhill and that's where he said he was clocked going 52, in a 45 mile-per-hour zone.

"I have perfect control of this car. I don't feel like I'm about to kill a person and I have my 7-month-old son and wife in this car," Zimmerman said.

He said he will challenge the ticket in court, fearful it will raise his insurance rates.

"The people who are getting the citations aren't happy about it. So, they're going to look at ways to say that well, 'I'm getting the citation because of this...' The bottom line is: if you violate the law, you stand a chance of getting cited," said Maj. Frank Fujii, with the HPD.

HPD's spokesman said the department made traffic enforcement a priority this year to improve roadway safety.

So far, there have been 41 traffic fatalities on Oahu in 2008 which is far fewer than last year at the same time when there were 67 deaths. It was half as many traffic fatalities compared to 2006 when the number stood at 82.

"If enforcement is going to be something that keeps the roadways safe, I think everybody benefits," Fujii said.

But lawyers said judges will likely throw the tickets out of court wasting the time of drivers, police, judges and their staffs.