In this paper, a novel vehicle detection algorithm is proposed that utilizes the color histogram of the image. The color histogram is used to search the image for regions with shadow, block symmetry, and block non-homogeneity, thereby detecting the vehicle region. First, an integral histogram of the input image is computed to decrease the amount of required computation time for the block color histograms. Then, shadow detection is performed and the block symmetry and block non-homogeneity are checked in a cascade manner to detect the vehicle in the image. Finally, the proposed scheme is applied to both still images taken in a parking lot and an on-road video sequence to demonstrate its effectiveness.