TICKETS handed out by North Yorkshire Police officers have more than doubled in the past year, according to new figures.

Officers gave out 6,161 fixed penalty notices to people in the first three months of this policing year, compared with 2,523 for the same period last year.

They could have raised as much as £500,000, depending on the type of tickets which range from £30 to £80, with cash going to the Home Office.

Senior officers have partly blamed the increase on the huge number of motorists caught using their mobile phone while driving.

But they said a huge push to improve road safety with extra patrols and the new power to punish disorderly people with tickets had also driven up numbers.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said a "large number" of tickets were handed out to drivers caught chatting on mobile phones while driving.

He said overall ticket numbers had also risen because of the Operation Halter road safety drive, the success of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) patrols and because officers had spent more time on the roads patrolling.

"If you are the kind of person who doesn't care about speed limits then you might not care about getting insurance or following the other laws of society," he said.

"There is more to speed tickets than speeding. Quite often we get a big haul of more serious criminal matters and we find that road policing and other police work come together very nicely."

Earlier this year, North Yorkshire Police launched Operation Halter in partnership with North Yorkshire County Council. It aimed to reduce the number of serious accidents involving motorcyclists.

Police have also conducted a separate operation to target speeding drivers in several hotspot areas. It involved educational lessons or fines for those caught.

"No casualty" days have also been organised on Fridays once every two months. Statistics show that Fridays are the most dangerous day on roads with an average of 13 crashes. On the first such day there were nine.

Earlier this year, after a request under the Freedom Of Information Act, the Evening Press reported how motorists paid out £385,020 in speeding tickets alone last year, more than £1,000 a day.

There are two types of fixed penalty tickets, endorsable and non-endorsable. Endorsable tickets for offences such as speeding and passing red lights, lead to three points on your licence and a £60 fine. Non-endorsable tickets, for things like parking offences, lead to a £30 fine, but do not involve any points on your licence. Fixed penalty tickets for disorder involve an £80 fine.

Updated: 11:01 Thursday, August 18, 2005