Patent ID: 7065442

Claim:
An automatic slowdown control apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: a braking mechanism for braking wheels of said vehicle; vehicle stability parameter value detection means for detecting a parameter value of a parameter or one of parameters corresponding to a stability of the posture and/or behavior of said vehicle upon turning; automatic slowdown control means for starting automatic slowdown control of rendering said braking mechanism operative to slow down said vehicle based on the parameter value detected by said vehicle stability parameter value detection means when the parameter value is displaced to the instability side of the vehicle stability with respect to a control start threshold value set in advance and ending the automatic slowdown control when the parameter value, while the automatic slowdown control is being carried out, is displaced to the stability side of the vehicle stability with respect to a control end threshold value set in advance as a value on the stability side of the vehicle stability; and road gradient estimation means for estimating or detecting a road gradient of a road on which said vehicle travels; the control end threshold value having a plurality of different values set therefor which correspond to different values of the road gradient such that the vehicle stability is displaced more to the instability side as the value of the road gradient becomes higher; said automatic slowdown control means selecting one of the values of the control end threshold value in response to the value of the road gradient estimated or detected by said road gradient estimation means and deciding the end of the automatic slowdown control based on the selected value of the control end threshold value.