Controlling a vehicle to automatically prevent the vehicle from colliding with obstacles includes identifying and locating obstacles in front of the vehicle, wherein relative position of an obstacle is determined; measuring relative speed of the obstacles; assessing whether there is a risk of a collision between the vehicle and the obstacle as a function of the relative position and relative speed. If there is a risk of a collision, the method further includes: calculating an unsafe region around the obstacle as a function of known measurement errors; calculating an evasion point within or on an edge of the unsafe region; defining a protection zone around the evasion point; defining an evasion route which is in the form of a circular path and has a predefined radius of curvature; controlling the vehicle at a critical distance, so that the vehicle follows the evasion route which is tangential to the protection zone.