Did you figure out you can hide by turning off your engine? If the centipede is really close it won't lose track, but if there is some distance and you turn off the engine it will lose track of you. What works well for me is to carefully listen for the centipede as I drive around and turn off my engine when I hear it nearby.
That said, there's definitely some balancing we could do to improve things (I think we should be more gracious about it losing track and once it finds you and hits you maybe it should go away for a bit to give you a chance to escape?). Anyway, thanks for playing and giving feedback! :D