RELATED APPLICATIONS

This applicationis a reissue application of U.S. Pat. No. 9,620,012 issued on Apr. 11, 2017, and is a continuation of application Ser. No. 16/204,958 filed on Nov. 29, 2018, which is also an application for reissue of U.S. Pat. No. 9,620,012, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/616,430 filed Feb. 6, 2015, whichis a continuation of International Application No. PCT/P2013/005349, filed on Sep. 10, 2013, which in turn claims the benefit of Japanese Application No. 2012-217887 filed on Sep. 28, 2012, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The present invention relates to a technology of notification and, more particularly, to a notification device that outputs notification in accordance with predetermined information and vehicles in which the notification device is used.

2. Description of the Related Art

There are proposed driving assistance systems capable of automatically outputting an alert for avoiding danger to the driver driving a vehicle in order to prevent the vehicle from getting into a dangerous running condition. In such systems, the running condition of the driver's vehicle or the presence of an obstacle in front is detected to determine whether to output an alert.

SUMMARY

In the presence of a vehicle receiving driving assistance such as green wave, drivers of nearby vehicles seeing the supported vehicle may not be able to understand the behavior such as acceleration or deceleration and cause a near-end accident, the drivers may feel offended and drive the vehicle dangerously (e.g., drive the vehicle in an inciting manner).

Embodiments address these issues and a purpose thereof is to provide a technology that helps prevent an accident induced by a vehicle receiving driving assistance.

The notification device according to an embodiment is mounted on a vehicle and includes: an acquisition unit that acquires information indicating that a driver's vehicle is receiving driving assistance in which a speed is controlled to allow the driver's vehicle to pass a signal with a traffic light of the signal turned green; an output unit that outputs notification to other vehicles in accordance with the information acquired by the acquisition unit; and

a radio unit that transmits a packet signal including the notification output from the output unit.

Optional combinations of the aforementioned constituting elements, and implementations of the invention in the form of methods, apparatuses, systems, recording mediums, and computer programs may also be practiced as additional modes of the present invention.

