Patent ID: 8145385

Claim:
A vehicle driving control apparatus comprising: an obstacle detecting device configured to detect an existence of an obstacle positioned laterally of a host vehicle in which the vehicle control apparatus is employed; a future position estimating device configured to estimate a future position of the host vehicle after a prescribed amount of time; an obstacle avoidance control device configured to execute an obstacle avoidance control with respect to the host vehicle when the existence of an obstacle is detected by the obstacle detecting device such that the obstacle avoidance control device controls the host vehicle based on the estimated future position to prevent the host vehicle from laterally approaching the obstacle whose existence was detected; and a lane change intent detecting device configured to detect an intent of a driver to effect a lane change and a direction of the intended lane change, the obstacle avoidance control device further including a control suppressing portion that suppresses the obstacle avoidance control when the lane change intent detecting device detects that the direction of the intended lane change is the direction of an adjacent lane located on an opposite side of the host vehicle as the side on which the detected obstacle exists.