A passenger who got behind the steering wheel of an Uber car so that the driver could nap led the police on a highway chase in central New York, the State Police said.

The passenger, Juan R. Carlos, 20, of the Bronx, hired the car to travel nearly 300 miles from Philadelphia to a college in Herkimer, N.Y., on Saturday, the police said.

At about 5:35 a.m., the State Police were monitoring traffic on Interstate 81 in Kirkwood, N.Y., a town near the Pennsylvania border, when a 2016 Hyundai Sonata went by at 86 miles per hour, the police said. Troopers attempted to stop the car, but it sped up and they eventually lost sight of it.