Road safety lobby group Safe Speed, which argues that speed cameras cause more problems than they solve, says drivers are being distracted by the different colours and markings on camera vans up and down the country.

The call comes after Cambridgeshire's mobile patrols were all changed from yellow to blue. The campaign group wants fluorescent colours to make them easily visible.

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Safe Speed co-founder Claire Armstrong said: "Consistency is good on the roads. 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."

Miss Armstrong said there was a huge variety of colours and styles of speed camera vans in different police areas, adding that forces tended to change them relatively frequently.

Cambridgeshire's mobile patrols used to be yellow, but have recently been changed to blue to match the livery of police traffic vehicles.

In neighbouring Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, the camera vans are white, with fluorescent coloured markings.

Safe Speed is concerned that this lack of uniformity may not be improving road safety, because motorists can easily become distracted by any vehicle parked in a layby and not watch the road.

Miss Armstrong said: "At the moment, there is such a variety of colours and styles 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 layby is a speed trap."

But Inspector Clinton Hale, of the Cambridgeshire Safety Camera Partnership, said part of the reason for changing the county's speed vans to blue was to prevent just such confusion.

He said: "The vans were due to be replaced. 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."

A recent Evening Telegraph report revealed the revenue generated by speed cameras in Cambridgeshire has more than doubled in less than 10 years.

The county, which has 73 fixed cameras and two mobile camera vans, raised more than £1.2 million during 2006, compared to less than £600,000 in 1997.