You know him, you love him, and he’s back again: it’s Fridays with Frank. Everyone’s favorite sheriff’s deputy used his weekly video series to make a point about a common excuse: passing another car does not license a driver to speed. This new episode of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office series “Fridays With Frank,” which follows traffic deputy Frank Sloup through his stops is here.
And this time, you’ll get to see two drivers making the same argument and getting the same answer.
Early in the video, Sloup stops a blue sedan near a shopping center after his radar clocks the car going 58 mph. He speaks with the driver, takes the paperwork back to his vehicle, then returns to lay out the problem. And he’s got a lesson he needs to discuss with them, as is usually the case.
The video then cuts to a rural road, where Sloup pulls over a red Toyota SUV. The driver begins to explain that he was only following the car ahead of him before the captions move on. He later apologizes, saying he was not trying to do anything wrong.
That second driver is described in the sheriff’s office post as a Vietnam veteran, and the tone shifts. Sloup still delivers the same traffic lesson about speed and passing, though the post frames the encounter around the holiday, saying the veteran is a reminder of what the Fourth of July is about. He also still needed to slow down.
Why Passing Another Car Doesn’t Give You An Excuse to Speed
The through line in both stops is that a posted speed limit is a ceiling, not a suggestion that bends for a maneuver. Drivers often treat a pass as a moment where the limit briefly stops applying, and Sloup’s point across both stops is that it does not. A driver who is speeding while passing is simply speeding.
That topic comes up more often that you might think when it comes to Arizona’s highways, where a slower vehicle can tempt a driver into accelerating well past the limit to get around it. But just because they can do it, that doesn’t mean that drivers should.
And Sloup has been more than open about the reason he keeps hammering the message, previously telling InMaricopa that the goal is to get drivers to slow down before a crash does it for them. And no one is going to like that option.
What Is “Fridays With Frank?”
The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has been running “Fridays With Frank” since late 2021, and it serves up some serious lessons with a smile. Each episode is cut from Sloup’s body camera and follows him through stops on Arizona roads. If you love watching them, which traffic shows that you do, there are nearly 200 of them by now.
And Sloup always has something fun to share with the class.
Fun fact: Sloup has said Pinal County drivers sometimes recognize him and greet him by name before he reaches the window. Nearly every episode ends the same way, and that’s inviting folks to become deputies themselves. But there’s always something to take away with what happens onscreen, so tune in for new episodes and we’ll keep bringing our takes on them to you.