A man was arrested after driving a stolen cab all the way from Orange County to Lancaster.

The pursuit started when the taxi was left unattended with the keys in the vehicle while a taxi driver went into a 7-Eleven in Santa Ana at around 11 p.m. Thursday night, a Santa Ana Police Department spokesman said.

And after running a gauntlet of PIT maneuvers and spike strips, driving on burst tires for much of the way, he was finally apprehended in Lancaster at around 3 a.m. Friday.

The chase began when the taxi's owner went outside he saw that his cab was stolen and called police.

The pursuit traveled from Orange County to Los Angeles County over several freeways before encircling East Los Angeles. At one point the driver endangered lives by speeding through an active construction zone on the 5 freeway.

The chase started out at slow speeds of around 30 mph. But once officers tried to spin out the car, the driver sped up to 80 mph for a short time before slowing down.

Jason Kandel, Michael Larkin and Joe Studley contributed to this report