Keeping a safe distance from the car in front of you is important in car accident prevention. This paper presents the use of a single CCD camera to measure the distance to the car in front at night. The distance from the car in front is estimated using the taillight, the license plate (LP), and distance measurement. The two taillights of a car are detected and extracted to be the salient features in estimation. Based on the proportionality of similar triangles, the distance between the CCD camera and the car in front is calculated. Since the width of the two taillights of a car depends on its type and shape, LPs are detected for accuracy enhancement. From the results, less processing time and high accuracy rates have been achieved using the proposed approach.
