The invention relates to a vehicle control device adapted to be mounted in a host vehicle (H), the vehicle control device comprising an environment monitoring unit adapted and configured to monitor the environment of the host vehicle (H) and to provide corresponding environment monitoring data, and a lane change request generating unit adapted and configured to determine based upon the environment monitoring data whether the generation of a request for a lane change of the host vehicle (H) from a current lane (CL) to a lower-ranking lane (RL) is to be initiated (arrow A6a) or is to be suppressed (arrow A6b), if the environment monitoring data indicate that at least one succeeding vehicle (S) driving in the same lane as the host vehicle (H) approaches the host vehicle from behind at a speed higher than the speed of the host vehicle (H).