The longest truck in the world In the outback of Australia, Jeremy Hart hitched a ride on the Centipede. ‘If I take my foot off the accelerator, it’ll take us about four kilometres to stop,’ says Matt Langley, the Australian captain of the Centipede, which, at approximately 54.5 metres, and consisting of a driver’s cab and six trailers, is claimed to be the world’s longest truck. Matt has a delicate touch. His hands, on the 60 cm steering wheel, control a million dollars’ worth of trailers carrying zinc ore. One false move on the narrow 128-km road from McArthur River Mine, the world’s largest zinc mine, to the port at Bing Bong and the Centipede, with its 110 wheels, would crash. However, in two years of delivering valuable loads of powdered zinc ore from mine to coast, the truck has had only one accident. x1xx7xx I asked him about the job. ‘The hardest thing is the concentration. The road is really boring and in places it is a bit rough. One problem is the fact that you are pulling six huge trailers behind you. x2xx xx I’d hate that to happen to me.’ Almost 60 metres ahead of the last trailer, high above the road in the air-conditioned comfort of Matt’s cab, you can lose almost all sense of pulling 130 tonnes of raw material. x3xx xx This movement is repeated down the length of the Centipede. Matt is in control but you can see it takes a real