This paper propose the method to recognize the lanes and distance between cars in real-time which detects dangerous situations and helps safe driving in the actual road environment. First of all, it extracts the area of interest corresponding to roads and cars from the road image photographed by using the forward-looking camera. Through the hough transform for the area of interest, this study detects linear components and also selects the lane and conducts filtering by calculating probability. And through the shadow threshold analysis of the cars in front within the area of interest, it extracts the objects of cars in front and calculates the distance from cars in front. According to the result of applying the suggested technology to recognize the lane and distance between cars to the road situation for testing, it showed over 95% recognition rate; thus, it has been proved that it can respond to safe driving.