Motorists face the return of hidden speed cameras after Britain’s top traffic policeman said that more lives would be saved if drivers were unable to predict where they could be caught.

Med Hughes, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire and head of roads policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers, has opened the way for forces to stop painting cameras yellow or informing drivers where they will be using mobile camera vans.

In an interview with The Times, he said: “I have always thought it strange that speed cameras were so easily identified. We need to think about whether greater compliance will be delivered by using technology in a less conspicuous way. I might put up Neighbourhood Watch signs but I don’t tell burglars when I am specifically running an anticrime operation.”

Mr Hughes believes that road deaths are not falling fast enough partly because too many drivers slow down only briefly as they pass cameras. He wants camera partnerships, run by police and councils, to take advantage of a change in the way that cameras are funded.

Until April, partnerships were allowed to keep a proportion of speeding fines. In return, they had to abide by a set of rules, including a requirement for cameras to be conspicuous and clearly signposted.

The Government changed the system after protests that police had a financial incentive to catch drivers. The partnerships now receive a fixed grant but they are no longer bound by the rules that stated that “camera housings must be coloured yellow” and be visible from 60 metres (197ft) on a road with a 40mph limit or less and 100 metres on other roads.

The rules also required partnerships to publicise the location of mobile cameras. Mr Hughes said: “The money is no longer linked to the rules and therefore we no longer have to abide by those rules. When you do get hit by hidden cameras you can blame those people who said cameras were cash generators.”

The partnership in North Wales, where Richard Brunstrom is Chief Constable, has already stopped publishing details of where it is carrying out speed enforcement. Inspector Essi Ahari said: “We will be enforcing anywhere and all the time, including using better lenses to operate at night.”

Another rule that has ceased to apply had required partnerships to focus almost all their enforcement on roads where there had been several deaths or serious injuries.

North Wales and Cumbria now focus on roads which they believe to be dangerous but where there have been no serious crashes.

Inspector Ahari said: “We used to have to say to schools that we could not enforce because no one had died yet. Now we can go and deal with the problem before the deaths happen.”

Andrew Howard, head of road safety at the AA, said that it would oppose hiding all speed cameras but would support trials in which signs were put up on certain routes telling drivers that hidden cameras were operating.

What he said

“ I find it weird that there is this idea that enforcing speeding law is somehow unsporting”

“ We need to discuss raising speed limits when people get used to adhering to the current ones”

“ We should be teaching 10 and 11-year-olds about their responsibilities when driving a car, not just how to be a safe pedestrian or cyclist”

“ Speed cameras have released officers for other duties by automating the enforcement process. They are like burglar alarms, which are just older and more accepted”

“ Reducing the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg would make a valuable public statement that it’s impossible to have even one drink and be certain you would pass a breathalyser test”