Vehicle control device, vehicle control method, and storage medium

A vehicle control method causing a computer to perform:

• recognizing a surrounding situation of a vehicle;
• controlling an action of the vehicle;
• specifying a first vehicle in front of a region which the vehicle is scheduled to enter and a second vehicle behind the region according to inter-vehicle distances between a plurality of vehicles located in front of or to a side of the vehicle in a lane of a route changing destination when a route of the vehicle is changed to a side, wherein the specifying comprises:
• in response to determining that a difference between a first inter-vehicle distance between the plurality of vehicles and a second inter-vehicle distance between the plurality vehicles is equal to or less than a threshold, the second inter-vehicle distance being longer than the first inter-vehicle distance, specifying two vehicles forming the first inter-vehicle distance as the first and second vehicles, wherein the first vehicle is in front of two vehicles forming the second inter-vehicle distance;
• and
• causing the vehicle to move to a vicinity of the first and second vehicles in a lane in which the vehicle is traveling.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that is configured to store a computer program to be executed by a computer to perform at least:

• recognizing a surrounding situation of a vehicle;
• controlling an action of the vehicle;
• specifying a first vehicle in front of a region which the vehicle is scheduled to enter and a second vehicle behind the region according to inter-vehicle distances between a plurality of vehicles located in front of or to a side of the vehicle in a lane of a route changing destination when a route of the vehicle is changed to a side, wherein the specifying comprises:
• when a difference between a first inter-vehicle distance between the plurality of vehicles and a second inter-vehicle distance between the plurality vehicles is equal to or less than a threshold, wherein the second inter-vehicle distance is longer than the first inter-vehicle distance, specify two vehicles forming the first inter-vehicle distance as the first and second vehicles, wherein the first vehicle is in front of two vehicles forming the second inter-vehicle distance;
• and
• causing the vehicle to move to a vicinity of the first and second vehicles in a lane in which the vehicle is traveling.