Patent ID: 8606479

Claim:
A vehicle drive assist system comprising: front-environment recognition means for recognizing a running environment in front of a subject vehicle; preceding-vehicle recognition means for recognizing a preceding vehicle on the basis of the running environment recognized by the front-environment recognition means; and running control means for increasing and decreasing the subject vehicle speed so that the subject vehicle follows a recognized preceding vehicle and for performing acceleration control so as to return the subject vehicle speed to a previously set vehicle speed when the preceding vehicle moves away, wherein the running control means includes: forward-obstacle recognition means for recognizing a forward obstacle on the basis of the running environment recognized by the front-environment recognition means after the preceding-vehicle recognition means detects that the preceding vehicle has moved away; obstacle specifying means for specifying a type of the forward obstacle recognized by the forward-obstacle recognition means by determining whether or not the forward obstacle satisfies any of obstacle specifying conditions corresponding to a plurality of preset types; and sub-running control means for limiting the acceleration control performed by the running control means upon the forward-obstacle recognition means recognizing a forward obstacle after the preceding-vehicle recognition means detects that the preceding vehicle has moved away, wherein the sub-running control means limits the acceleration control performed by the running control means based on the forward obstacle type specified by the obstacle specifying means such that an acceleration control performed by the running control means with limitation by the sub-running control means results in a lower value of acceleration as compared to a value of acceleration that would result from the acceleration control performed by the running control means without limitation by the sub-running control means.