Vehicle Control Method and Vehicle Control Device

A vehicle control method includes: detecting, on a planned travel route of a host vehicle, a merging section in which a travel lane in which the host vehicle is traveling merges with another lane; determining whether or not to execute merging assistance control for assisting the host vehicle to change lanes into the other lane in the merging section; and when the merging assistance control is determined not to be executed in the merging section, controlling the speed of the host vehicle to be a predetermined speed or less before the host vehicle passes through a starting point of the merging section.