Patent ID: 7742864

Claim:
A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus comprising: vehicle traveling condition detecting means for detecting traveling conditions of a vehicle; vehicle forward information detecting means for detecting vehicle forward information including at least road configuration and solid objects moving ahead of the vehicle, the road configuration including lane marker data ahead of the vehicle; vehicle traveling path estimating means for estimating a traveling path of the vehicle according to at least either of the road configuration and the detected vehicle traveling conditions; first judgment region establishing means for establishing a width based on the estimated vehicle traveling path as a first judgment region in the road ahead of the vehicle; second judgment region establishing means for establishing a width wider than the first judgment region and based on the lane marker data as a second judgment region in the road ahead of the vehicle; and preceding vehicle identifying means for identifying that a solid object ahead of the vehicle is a preceding vehicle when the solid object currently exists within the first judgment region and the solid object has existed in either the first judgment region or the second judgment region for more than a threshold time period.