ARMED stand-offs, machete-wielding drunks, numerous high-speed chases, and drug farm discoveries.

According to the latest series of Police Interceptors, which has moved from the sleepy rural lanes of Lincolnshire last series, to the fast-paced crime hotbeds of Teesside and County Durham this time, there's rarely a dull moment for the Cleveland and Durham Specialist Operations Unit (SOU).

The unit is a partnership between the two forces and covers roads policing as well as being the armed response unit, and providing back-up for response teams when needed. These officers are highly trained in using both firearms and tasers, as well as skilful driving manoeuvres - many of which are seen on the Channel 5 show, made by production company Raw Cut.

I join Sergeant Kevin Salter, of Durham Police, for an afternoon patrolling the streets of Darlington in an unmarked BMW X5.

Straight away, he hears from a colleague on the radio that there's an uninsured driver in the Whinfield area.

I thought we'd have a little amble up to Whinfield, but the blues and twos are on, and suddenly we're driving at top speed down Thompson Street and on to Salters Lane, hunting for the vehicle.

I'm trying to look calm and professional, but in reality I'm clinging on to my seat and trying not to scream. It feels strange to be driving like this in a residential area, but as we weave in and out of cars to get to our destination it seems obvious Sgt Salter has had some pretty serious driving training.

"It's not normally this quiet," he says about 45 minutes later, after stopping a man for not wearing his seatbelt and another uninsured driver.

On the radio comes in an instruction to look out for a vulnerable man who is said to be missing from home, after his car was spotted not far from train tracks in Albert Hill.

As we wait with an uninsured driver who he pulled over on North Road, for the car to be towed away, in comes another call for armed response officers. Sgt Salter explains but there have been reports of someone wielding a gun on the Honeypot Lane caravan site in Darlington.

Cleveland and Durham forces are the most likely in the country to use armed officers, with more than 70 callouts to armed incidents in the first six months of the year.

We park up in a layby, a meeting point with the rest of the armed response team, who have donned their helmets and bullet-proof vests, as well as their weapons, ready for the ok from the police helicopter circling above, to go in.

Instead they are informed two suspects left the site in a vehicle and the team may need to do a complex driving manoeuvre, involving two or more cars, to stop them.

It's too risky for a civilian to be involved so I have to get out of the car while they zoom off to intercept their suspects.

It turns out - thankfully - that the suspects were not armed and no offence appears to have been committed.

Camera crews spent 12 weeks with the Unit, over the summer, and the officers featured in it have become recognised faces in recent weeks. Sgt Salter has been stopped by fans while out shopping, and even some of the suspects they intercept are a bit starstruck - leading to gentle teasing by his fellow officers.

He'll live with the embarrassment, though, for the greater good: "The programme is good for us because people understand what we do now. It's not just about stopping people for minor driving offences - our unit is so much more than that and it helps when the public appreciate what we do."

*Police Interceptors, which shows Sgt Salter going on the hunt for heroin dealers, airs tonight (MONDAY) on Channel 5 at 8pm.