Vehicle traveling control apparatus

A vehicle traveling control system comprising:

• one or more sensors configured to acquire external environment information of a host vehicle, the host vehicle traveling in a traveling lane following a preceding vehicle;
• and
• a vehicle traveling control apparatus configured to:
• determine whether the preceding vehicle deviates from a lane center of the traveling lane based on the external environment information;
• responsive to determining that the preceding vehicle does not deviate from the lane center, set a mid-point of a width of the preceding vehicle as a control target point;
• responsive to determining that the preceding vehicle deviates from the lane center:
• 1) calculate a shift amount based on a difference between the width of the preceding vehicle and a width of the host vehicle, wherein the shift amount increases according to an increase in the difference between the width of the preceding vehicle and the width of the host vehicle;
• and
• 2) set, as the control target point, a position shifted from the mid-point of the preceding vehicle by the calculated shift amount in a direction opposite a direction in which the preceding vehicle deviates from the lane center;
• and
• execute a following travel control of the host vehicle for following the preceding vehicle based on the control target point.