Patent ID: 8892346

Claim:
A driving assistance device for a vehicle comprising: a surrounding-vehicle-information acquisition device for sequentially acquiring vehicle information, which is sequentially transmitted from a surrounding vehicle around a host vehicle by vehicle-to-vehicle communication, the vehicle information including information for specifying a position and a travelling direction of the surrounding vehicle; a position acquisition device for acquiring a current position of the host vehicle; a direction acquisition device for acquiring a travelling direction of the host vehicle; a display controller for controlling a display device to display an image indicative of a current position of the surrounding vehicle relative to the current position and the travelling direction of the host vehicle, according to the vehicle information of the surrounding vehicle, and the current position and the travelling direction of the host vehicle; a surrounding-vehicle-track generation device for generating a surrounding vehicle track, which is at least one of a previous track and a future track of the surrounding vehicle, based on the vehicle information of the surrounding vehicle, the previous track being indicative of a past travelling track, and the future track being indicative of an expected future travelling track; and a track display determination device for determining whether it is necessary to display the surrounding vehicle track of the surrounding vehicle, based on the vehicle information of the surrounding vehicle, and the current position and the travelling direction of the host vehicle, and a positional change determination device for determining a change in a positional relationship between the surrounding vehicle and the host vehicle, based on the vehicle information of the surrounding vehicle, and the current position and the travelling direction of the host vehicle, wherein: the display controller controls the display device to further display the surrounding vehicle track of the surrounding vehicle in the image when the track display determination device determines that it is necessary to display the surrounding vehicle track of the surrounding vehicle; the track display determination device determines whether it is necessary to display the surrounding vehicle track of the surrounding vehicle, in accordance with the change in the positional relationship; the track display determination device determines that it is necessary to display the surrounding vehicle track when the change in the positional relationship indicates that the surrounding vehicle does not approach the current position of the host vehicle from a front side of the host vehicle; and the display controller the display device to display the previous track of the surrounding vehicle when the surrounding vehicle does not approach the current position of the host vehicle from the front side of the host vehicle.