A politician fears plans to stop 24-hour road policing in the north and north-east could encourage criminals to target remote and rural communities.
Highland Green MSP John Finnie said he was worried that proposals to only base specialist officers in Glasgow, Motherwell and Edinburgh to patrol the motorway network in the early hours from next year could impact on crime fighting.
The former policeman turned politician said it was also important to patrol major trunk roads like the A9 between Inverness to Perth, and the A90 Inverness to Aberdeen route.
“A major deterrent to would-be law breakers is the possibility of detection,” he added.
“This is particularly the case with travelling criminals who must be intercepted on our road network before visiting crime sprees on remote and rural committees.”
Mr Finnie urged Police Scotland to devolve more power to officers at local level so they can make their own decisions to avoid “mistakes” caused by centralised policy-making.
It has been claimed that the change in policy was to allow officers to catch more people driving dangerously in more populated areas to meet targets.
A source said the proposal was causing concern amongst officers who were unable to voice their opinions for fear of disciplinary action.
“The road policing coverage being proposed will leave units to cover the whole of Scotland on a nightshift,” they said.
“The force wants more officers to be on duty during day shifts and early evening shifts to enable them to issue more tickets to motorists.
“The target culture is very much alive in Police Scotland.”
The claim was strongly rejected by a spokeswoman for Police Scotland who said it “does not have targets”.
Chief Superintendent Iain Murray head of road policing, said: “Local communities repeatedly tell us road safety is one of their key concerns which is why it is one of our top policing priorities.
“As a single service, we are now able to match resource to wherever it is needed, for example, we now have more than double the numbers in the Highland and islands division than under previous arrangements.
“We will continue to match our resources to demand particularly when the roads are busiest and where we can maximise our influence on road users and make Scotland’s roads safer.
“Officers will be available to deal with demand around the clock.”