Patent ID: 8498802

Claim:
A vehicle drive control apparatus comprising: an electronic control unit including an engine stop control unit which stops an engine when an automatic stop condition for automatically stopping the engine is satisfied during operation of the engine, and a behavior determination unit which determines whether a behavior of a vehicle is in a stable state or an unstable state based on a difference between a current yaw rate measurement and a previous yaw rate measurement, wherein the engine stop control unit avoids stopping the engine when the behavior of the vehicle is determined to be in the unstable state, the automatic stop condition not being satisfied when the behavior of the vehicle is determined to be in an unstable state during operation of the engine, the behavior determination unit determines whether the behavior of the vehicle is in a stable state or an unstable state based on a turning behavior of the vehicle, the vehicle includes a lateral acceleration sensor and a yaw rate sensor to determine the turning behavior of the vehicle, and stability of the vehicle is determined when a yaw rate variation amount compared to a previous detection value detected by the yaw rate sensor is smaller than a predetermined threshold.