Patent ID: 8290677

Claim:
A driving assisting apparatus for assisting a driving operation for stopping a running vehicle at a stop position, the apparatus comprising: stoppable condition acquiring means for acquiring a stoppable condition for allowing the vehicle to stop at the stop position; driver characteristic acquiring means for acquiring a driver characteristic concerning the driving operation for stopping the vehicle; and start condition setting means for setting a condition for starting assisting the driving operation; wherein the start condition setting means determines whether to determine the condition for starting assisting the driving operation by selecting one of the stoppable condition or driver characteristic, depending on a running state of the vehicle, wherein the start condition setting means determines a first timing based on the stoppable condition and a second timing based on the driver characteristic as timings for starting assisting the driving operation, and sets an occurrence of the second timing as the start condition when the second timing is earlier than the first timing, and wherein the start condition setting means acquires a timing at which a traffic light display state changes from a display indicating that the vehicle is passable to a display indicating that the vehicle is inhibited from passing, and employs the occurrence of the second timing as the start condition when the traffic light display state changing timing is earlier than the first timing but later than the second timing.