The invention relates to a method and to a device for analyzing a sensor data stream, which characterizes a vehicle environment, with respect to a presence of traffic scenarios. The invention further relates to a method for guiding a vehicle. A similarity measure, which indicates the degree of correspondence between a section of the sensor data stream and at least one template stored in a database, is determined by mapping the section of the sensor data stream to the at least one template, preferably by means of dynamic time normalization. The template thereby characterizes a known traffic scenario. The known traffic scenario is assigned to the section of the sensor data stream, if the similarity measure satisfies a predetermined similarity criterion.