A 21-year-old York man has been charged with aggravated vehicle theft and three counts of criminal damage with intent to endanger life after a bizarre, low-speed chase through York last month.

Police who chased the stolen Caterpillar five-tonner as it wreaked havoc on roads said they had "never seen anything like it", according to a report in the Yorkshire Post.

The forklift struck a police van, collided with a BMW and was involved in a four-car pile-up before police used a stinger device to burst two of its tyres. Even then, the forklift was only halted when officers managed to force it into the central barrier of a freeway.

North Yorkshire Police officer sergeant Graham Carroll said his team had not dealt with such circumstances before. It was the first time a stinger device had been used to slow a forklift.

"It was a big, big vehicle. You think of a forklift as being one of these little things with small wheels but this was huge, with large road wheels. It was more like a small crane, really," he said.

"The tactics we used were exactly the same as those we would use to stop a car, but it's obviously much more difficult."