A ROAD safety campaign group has called for all police speed camera vans to be painted the same colour.
Safe Speed, which argues that speed cameras cause more problems than they solve, says drivers are being distracted by the variety of vans.
Claire Armstrong, the group's co-founder, said all vans should be painted the same bright colour so that road-users were left in no doubt.
"Consistency is good on the roads," said Miss Armstrong. "Motorists know that a red light means stop and green means go - no matter where they are.
"Speed camera vans should be the same. Identical. One bright fluorescent orange or yellow with the same markings. Then motorists will always know what they are - and they may be a deterrent.
"At the moment there is such a variety of colours and styles - and police forces change them quite often. It makes you wonder whether safety or catching people out is the priority.
"The problem is that too often motorists are not paying attention to the road because they're worrying whether every van in every lay by is a speed trap."
Cambridgeshire is the latest force to change the colour of its speed camera vans - from yellow to blue.
The force said the change bought the vans into line with the rest of its "traffic unit" vehicles.
"The vans were due to be replaced," said Inspector Clinton Hale. "We decided to change the colour to blue to fit in with the rest of the vehicles used by the traffic unit as the previous yellow vans were occasionally mistaken for work vans."
Safe Speed says cameras encourage drivers to concentrate on nothing but speed and do not reduce accidents or make roads safer.
The group says motorists should be encouraged to concentrate on all aspects of good driving.
