The invention discloses an active braking method based on VANET wireless short-range communications. The active braking method comprises the following steps of: acquiring a vehicle speed signal V<0> of a vehicle A<0>; calculating a vehicle accelerated speed according to the vehicle speed signal V<0> obtained in the step 1; obtaining a reference gradient G<2> of a road surface according to data G<0> obtained by a road surface gradient sensor and the influence G<1> of the vehicle accelerated speed on the data obtained by the road surface gradient sensor, wherein G<2>=G<0>-G<1>; calculating a vehicle slip rate S through a signal of a wheel speed sensor, calculating a wheel longitudinal force F through a signal of a wheel vertical load sensor, and further calculating a road surface adhesion coefficient mu through the vehicle slip rate S, the wheel longitudinal force F and a signal of a wheel cylinder pressure sensor; and step 4, starting a vehicle networking module, and performing networking with surrounding vehicles so as to obtain the data of the surrounding vehicles. According to the active braking method disclosed by the invention, a more accurate safety distance can be calculated in a real time manner under travelling conditions of different road surface gradients, different road surface adhesion coefficients, different vehicle speeds, and the like, and the reliability, the security and the stability are greatly improved.