A robot named Promobot made a break from a laboratory in Russia, but then caused a traffic jam when its battery ran out in the middle of the street.

Promobot apparently escaped after an engineer forgot to shut the gate in the lab's "testing grounds" in the city of Perm.

A witness filmed the robot stalled in the street and posted it on YouTube. In the video, a policeman guards the white, humanoid-looking robot while cars swerve to avoid hitting it.

According to Oleg Kivokurtsev, co-founder of the company behind Promobot, "the robot was learning automatic movement algorithms," which will be featured in an upcoming version. The company says that its machines are able to answer questions, give directions and even recognize people.