The invention relates to an optical measuring device (10) for a vehicle, comprising at least one optical transmitter (11, 12, 13, 14) that generates a transmitter radiation (5.1, 5.2) and radiates said radiation into a monitoring region (3), and at least one optical receiver (15) that receives a resulting receiver radiation (7.1, 7.2) from the monitoring region (3), wherein an evaluation and control unit (19) evaluates the receiver radiation (7.1, 7.2) for object recognition. In order to provide an optical measuring device for a vehicle which permits a simplified resolution of a switching process without manual operation and without preset gesture, at least one first optical transmitter (11) generates a first light field (30) of predetermined shape on a surface in the monitoring region (3) by emitting a directed first transmitter radiation (5.1) and at least one second optical transmitter (12, 13) generates a second light field (20) of predetermined shape in the adjacent surroundings of the first light field (30) by emitting a directed second transmitter radiation, wherein the evaluation and control unit (19) receives and evaluates a first receiver radiation (7.1) reflected by the surface of the first light field (30) and a second receiver radiation (7.2) reflected by the surface of the second light field (20) via the at least one optical receiver (15), wherein the evaluation and control unit (19) generates an output signal (SAus) when the evaluation and control unit (19) detects a change in the reflected second receiver radiation (7.2) caused by a trigger object (9) detected in the monitoring area (3) and a reflected first receiver radiation (7.1) unchanged by the trigger object (9).