A host vehicle has an automatic brake control that is executed for avoiding contact between the host vehicle and a pedestrian upon detecting a pedestrian is present in a forward position of the host vehicle using a front camera and a radar. In a driving assist control method, upon detecting an object in front of the host vehicle to be a pedestrian candidate based on an image signal from the front camera, execution of an automatic brake control is permitted with the detected pedestrian candidate as the control target. Thereafter, whether or not the pedestrian candidate detected by the front camera matches an object detected by the reflected waves from the millimeter wave radar is determined by comparison. Execution of the automatic brake control is continued or stopped based on the result of the comparison determination.