Police Scotland are putting more officers into the north-east as part of a campaign to cut the number of road accidents.
Superintendent Iain Murray, head of road policing, said with rural Aberdeenshire having 10% of the Scottish road network it was a case of having the right resources in place.
The increase in road deaths in Aberdeenshire and Moray last year had to be seen in context of the overall reduction in casualties, he said.
Supt Murray added while 2013 was a bad year for road deaths the long-term trend was still downwards and he wanted that to continue.
“That is why I am putting more traffic cops than ever into the north-east,” he said.
“Because of the geography and the particular challenges of the road network, there are vast open spaces of good roads where people can drive fast if they chose to do so.”
Supt Murray said working with the local road safety partnerships, his officers had the daily job of trying to improve driver behaviour, for instance, urging motorists not to speed or use mobile telephones and to use a seatbelt.
Ever crash site was examined to see if the road layout had a role to play, he said.
very wet which was not the case last year.
“Being a recreational motorcyclists it scares me what I sometimes see on the road,” he said.
“As soon it gets sunny the bikers come out and sadly its with bikers we saw the greatest percentage increase in fatalities across the country and that has had an impact in the north-east as well.”