Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus and traveling control system incorporating the apparatus

The apparatus (5) has a two solid object detecting units to detect solid objects based on image information of camera (3) and signals from radar (4), respectively. The two solid objects are fused to establish fusion objects. Traveling region estimating section judges whether or not the fusion objects have a fixed level of a reliability to select a preceding vehicle. An independent claim is also included for a traveling control system for controlling a traveling of an own vehicle based on information of a preceding vehicle selected by vehicle surrounding monitoring apparatus.