Abstract: The present invention is directed to achieve longer life of a driving element for driving a load without maintaining a stop state of the driving element even in the case where overcurrent occurs in the driving element. An overcurrent protection circuit monitors current flowing in driving elements for driving a load and, in the case where it is detected that the current becomes a predetermined threshold or larger, performs a control for stopping driving of the load only for predetermined protection time in accordance with a detection result. The overcurrent protection circuit counts the number of detection times and changes the predetermined protection time in accordance with the number of detection times.