Police have deployed an armoured vehicle to pry open the cabin of a lorry on a motorway in Texas.

The driver refused to stop, or get out of the cab when officers used spike strips to stop the vehicle, police said.

After the armoured vehicle tore open a window, police threw in a gas canister, before going inside and pulling the driver out.

It is unclear what started the chase, but police said the driver used “evasive manoeuvres”, changing lanes multiple times and swerving.

“We still don’t know why he was acting in the erratic manner that he was,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told journalists, adding that he appeared to have “some heavy impairment”.