Driving assistance apparatus and recording medium

A driving assistance apparatus configured to execute a process of alerting a driver based on a difficulty of driving, the driving assistance apparatus comprising:

• one or more processors;
• one or more memories communicably coupled to the one or more processors;
• and
• an effect level storage that, for the driver, records an effect level indicating a degree to which a sound effect output process causes the driver to operate an own vehicle such that vehicle body behavior of the own vehicle becomes more stable while the driver is driving, the sound effect output process outputting to the driver a sound effect in response to the vehicle body behavior, wherein
• the one or more processors are configured to:
• for each of predetermined sections along which the own vehicle is scheduled to travel, determine a difficulty level on a multi-level difficulty scale, the multi-level difficulty scale being an ordered set of levels;
• set, based on the effect level for the driver recorded in the effect level storage, groups of the levels on the multi-level difficulty scale, each group being a set of one or more levels that are adjacent to each other on the multi-level difficulty scale, the groups including a first group and a second group;
• assign to the first group a warning process that outputs a warning to the driver, and assign to the second group the sound effect output process that outputs the sound effect to the driver;
• and
• for each of the predetermined sections whose difficulty level belongs to the first group or the second group, select one of the warning process and the sound effect output process according to whether the difficulty level of that predetermined section belongs to the first group or the second group, and execute the selected one of the warning process and the sound effect output process,
• the groups comprise at least three groups including the first group and the second group and further including a third group,
• the first group corresponds to highest difficulty on the multi-level difficulty scale,
• the third group corresponds to lowest difficulty on the multi-level difficulty scale, and
• the second group corresponds to difficulty between the first group and the third group on the multi-level difficulty scale;
• and
• the one or more processors are further configured to:
• for each of the predetermined sections whose difficulty level belongs to the third group, refrain from executing both the warning process and the sound effect output process;
• and
• change, based on the effect level for the driver, the set of levels included in each of the first group, the second group, and the third group on the multi-level difficulty scale.