Patent ID: 8880319

Claim:
A driving control apparatus mounted on a present vehicle used for tracking drive operation wherein the present vehicle is driven so as to track a preceding vehicle existing ahead of the present vehicle, the driving control apparatus comprising: a control unit for controlling the present vehicle to accelerate or decelerate; a vehicle detecting unit for detecting the preceding vehicle; a region detecting unit for detecting a lateral region existing on an adjacent lane adjacent to a present lane where the present vehicle exists, the lateral region being laterally adjacent to the present vehicle; and a region determining unit for determining whether or not the lateral region is an avoidance region that has a predetermined area, wherein the control unit performs an avoidance standby operation that allows the present vehicle to accelerate or decelerate so as to maintain a relative position between the present vehicle and the avoidance region when the vehicle detecting unit detects the preceding vehicle existing on the present lane and when the region determining unit determines that the lateral region detected by the region detecting unit is the avoidance region, and the control unit controls the present vehicle to decelerate when the region determining unit determines no avoidance region is secured.