Recently released figures show nearly 2000 police officers were caught speeding in 2010 and 2011 - 60 per cent more than in the two previous years.

About half of the 1856 police vehicles caught speeding paid fines, while the rest were waived, figures provided to Fairfax under the Official Information Act show.

Superintendent Rob Morgan says the rise "is due to the introduction of lower speed tolerances over holiday periods and is in line with the increase in the number of lower-level speed offences across the general population".

The 10km/h tolerance allowed on the top speed limit of 100km/h was cut to 4km/h at Queen's Birthday Weekend in 2010, and has been used for all holiday weekends since.

National road policing operations manager Inspector Peter McKennie says the figures showed police are not immune from the law.

However, he says that on the whole, officers are very safe drivers.

If an officer is caught speeding they have to provide a valid excuse. Otherwise they are fined just like other members of the public.

"We'd much rather have no police employees exceeding the speed limit unjustifiably, but having said that ... we recognise that this happens from time to time and we hold our staff accountable when it does happen," Insp McKennie told Fairfax.