Patent ID: 7551103

Claim:
An alert system for a vehicle, said alert system comprising: a lane departure warning system operable to detect lane markers on a road being traveled by a vehicle equipped with said alert system; a side object detection system operable to detect the presence of another vehicle in a side lane adjacent to the lane being traveled by the equipped vehicle; wherein when said lane departure warning system detects the equipped vehicle making a lane change into a side lane and when said side object detection system detects a vehicle in that side lane, said alert system generates an alert to the driver of the equipped vehicle; and a forward facing camera having a forward field of view in the forward direction of travel of the equipped vehicle, said forward facing camera capturing image data within the forward field of view, and wherein said alert system processes said captured image data and detects at least one of a stop sign in the forward field of view and a stoplight in the forward field of view, and wherein when said alert system detects a stoplight or stop sign in the forward field of view and determines that the equipped vehicle is not going to stop based on at least one of a current speed of the equipped vehicle and a deceleration of the equipped vehicle, said alert system generates an alert signal to indicate that the equipped vehicle is not going to stop at the detected stoplight or stop sign.