A vehicle control apparatus (10) is equipped with a vehicle velocity detecting unit (26) that detects a vehicle velocity of a driver's own vehicle (12), and an automatic brake control unit (56) configured to carry out an automatic brake control process for causing a braking force to be generated automatically in the wheels (14) without reliance on a braking operation when the vehicle is involved in a collision. The automatic brake control unit (56) makes the braking force to the wheels (14) smaller as the vehicle velocity becomes higher after the vehicle collision.