The number of traffic stops made by Austin police motorcycle officers has risen dramatically in recent months under a new directive that those officers must engage with at least a dozen citizens a day.

But there is a glimmer of hope if you get pulled over: Officers more often than not have cut breaks to thousands of drivers, preferring to issue a warning instead of writing a ticket, according to data obtained by the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV.

Of the 14,391 stops motorcycle officers made from March through May, the officers wrote only 2,239 citations. Everyone else was told to “slow down” — and were let go.

Assistant Police Chief Justin Newsom and other officials say they want to make clear that they have not issued a ticket-writing quota, although he and other officials acknowledge the move comes at a time when the city is dealing with a yearslong trend in a declining number of tickets and, in turn, revenue for the city.

Newsom said generating money for city coffers isn’t the point of the new standard.

Officials said they started crunching data at the first of the year and noticed that while some officers were prolific in the number of stops, others appeared less aggressive.

At that point, Newsom said, officials worked to establish a universal goal.

“There were some who weren’t meeting a standard,” he said. “However, there was no standard set. So to be fair to everyone in the unit, to give them a target to try to obtain, we worked on a standard of citizen contact.”

Each of the 50 officers, who work 10 hours four days a week, were asked to sign a joint agreement in February with their supervisors to conduct an average of 1½ “citizen contacts” per hour. Most of those contacts are from traffic stops.

“There was no direction on what was supposed to be done on those stops,” Newsom said.

Since putting the new directive in place, the number of drivers pulled over has risen dramatically compared with the same period last year, when motorcycle officers made 4,961 stops, issuing 1,492 tickets and 3,469 warnings.

Newsom said the purpose of the motorcycle unit is to enforce traffic laws and improve traffic safety — not necessarily write tickets. The new directive helps ensure that the officers are talking to drivers about why they should slow down and not be distracted by their cellphones.

Last year, Austin had 74 traffic deaths, a slight decrease from the 76 killed in 2017. So far, halfway through 2019, the city has had 37 traffic deaths, compared with the 26 deaths police recorded at this time last year.

“We hope that by being out there and making traffic stops when people violate the law, that it will be a deterrent,” Newsom said.

Ken Casaday, president of the Austin police union, said many officers feel warnings are more appropriate than tickets, particularly when a driver may be only 5 to 10 mph over the speed limit.

“We believe that management is within their rights to set work standards for certain units,” he said. “When we were briefed on this issue, we were assured the recommended changes would not be used to establish an illegal ticket quota.”