Various assistance systems in the art may detect roadway markings—such as a boundary line or a center line of a road—and adjacent vehicles. These systems may either warn the driver if the distance from the roadway marking or from a leading vehicle changes in a potentially critical manner or steer the motor vehicle autonomously at an appropriate distance from the roadway marking and from other vehicles.
Such an assistance system typically has to ignore oncoming vehicles while driving on open roads because there is no risk of a collision when the vehicles use different lanes and constant warnings of the assistance system about oncoming traffic would only annoy the driver. Even at an intersection or road junction, a warning about oncoming traffic or another measure for reducing the risk of a collision is only useful if the driver is actually oblivious to the oncoming traffic and has not taken any suitable measures for preventing a collision.