Police in South Carolina have engaged in a not-so-hot pursuit as they chased an excavator down a main highway for more than an hour at the speed an average adult walks.

The chase reached speeds of 3mph (5km/h) early on Sunday morning in North Charleston, police said.

Officers on a different call saw the big piece of construction equipment with treads and a shovel in front go across US Highway 78 around 3.30am, North Charleston Police wrote in their report.

A few minutes later, they got a burglary call from a business that was heavily damaged and saw the excavator slowly heading away, police said.

Several cars immediately joined in the very slow pursuit. The excavator was going so slow that the cruisers would have to briefly stop several times a minute to not pass the construction equipment.

They had their blue lights and sirens on and told the excavator driver over their loudspeakers that he was under arrest and needed to stop. Other cruisers blocked traffic.

The chase went on for an hour and 12 minutes before the excavator drove on to the Charleston County Fairgrounds property, where it got stuck.

The driver tried to run, but was followed by a drone until a police dog and handler caught up, authorities said.

The 53-year-old driver of the excavator was charged with failure to stop for a blue light and two counts of malicious injury to real property and remained in the Charleston County jail on a $22,000 bond, according to jail records.