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Molino Man Fined, License Suspended For Bicyclist’s Death
February 18, 2011
A Molino man’s driver’s license has been suspended and he has been fined in connection with the death of cross country bicyclist last year.
Eddie Hogg, 41, pleaded no contest and was subsequently found guilty on a careless driving charge. He had his driver’s license suspended for six months and was fined $1,160 by Judge Thomas Welch on the civil citation.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Roger W. Grooters, 66, of Gulf Breeze was riding his bicycle on the shoulder of State Road 20 in Bay County about 8:55 a.m. October 6, 2010. Hogg, 41, of Molino, traveled onto the shoulder of the roadway in his 2006 Chevrolet pickup where he hit the bicyclist, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Grooters was ejected from the bicycle and came to rest on the shoulder of the road where he was pronounced dead by Washington County EMS. He was on the final leg of a bicycle journey from Oceanside, California, to Jacksonville, Florida, to raise awareness of the plight of oil spill victims.
Comments
16 Responses to “Molino Man Fined, License Suspended For Bicyclist’s Death”
> My gosh people!IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!I
It was unintentional, yes. As for an accident, that depends on exactly how you define the term.
Just because a collision was unintentional, that doesn’t mean it’s not a crime.
“Careless driving” was the charge, and you aren’t trying to say he wasn’t guilty of that, are you? He got off easy … far easier than Roger Grooters.
Roger was my uncle, by the way.
This was not an accident. This was a distracted driver. When you get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle you need to pay attention to what is going to around you. Hitting a bicyclist riding on the shoulder of the road, out of the travel lane, is not an accident.
First give the families estate the vehicle that hit him.
Basically you kill somebody with your car, you lose your car.
Secondly this guy has been erased off the planet, somebody relied on him, work, family? Nobody seems to think about dependents left behind? Losing a wage earner could wipe out a family.
Third, Florida leads the nation in cyclist kills, it is very ovious the drivers here need some training on negligence.
I ride here daily, nobody uses their signals, they speed, they talk on their phone and text, back-up without looking, litter horribly. I see it EVERY day.
REGARDING:
” “this guy wrote ALL OVER THE COUNTRY – - – the drivers here are terrible and
everyone here thinks there should NEVER be any consequences.- – - WE are not even allowed to HAVE an opinion of what his sentence should be or WE ARE SUDDENLY THE BAD GUYS,- – ”
(you meant to type “rode“–not “wrote“)
My parenthetical even has meaning because we all make mistakes. We don’t always do what we meant to do. Even the Apostle Paul admitted he didn’t always do what he wanted to do and he sometimes did what he didn’t want to do.
Not all the drivers around here are terrible drivers. Many do things we shouldn’t now and then, but none of us drives badly all the time or we’d’ve all killed each other by now. We do get distracted. Too many get distracted by avoidable distractions like texting but even conversations with others are distractions or something beside the road can be a distraction. Distractions can kill.
A man died. That’s a terrible thing in that it didn’t have to happen.
A man killed him. That’s a terrible thing in that it didn’t have to happen, either.
Did he do it on purpose? Does he regret what happened? Do we know?
Answers to those questions are needed to judge how to properly respond. That’s a job for judges. A good judge will find the answers and rule accordingly. I assume he did.
You’re free to express your opinion of the judge’s ruling and others are free to express their opinion of your opinion. All’re free to disagree even with me, and frequently do.
David for avoiding regrets
by avoiding regrettable actions
My husband said “this guy wrote ALL OVER THE COUNTRY and
he was just coming back home, but he had to come here and to be
taken out.
YOU know why people, because the drivers here are terrible and
everyone here thinks there should NEVER be any consequences.
Lets don’t DO anything to the perp and lets don’t SAY anything to the perp.
WE are not even allowed to HAVE an opinion of what his sentence should
be or WE ARE SUDDENLY THE BAD GUYS, but the guy who killed this
cyclist ………..I guess he is the good guy.
YOU PEOPLE ARE REALLY MESSED UP
My gosh people!IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!Im sure he didnt get out of bed that morning and say hey let me go and run over this man. That i dont even know just becouse i can. Accidents happen to every family im sure his family is having a hard time with this just as the victims family is give him a break.
I don’t know what the punishment should be. I know if it was my family member who had been killed, I would feel that justice hadn’t been served.
I also know if I had accidentally hit someone, and killed them, I would be so distraut, I couldn’t function. I would not need, nor want to go to prison. It was an accident.
I am praying for the family, and friends of Roger Grooters, and I am also praying for Eddie Hogg. Look to GOD for guidence and relief.
The system is broken and the punishment here doesn’t fit the crime at all.
This is a very sad situation. I know Eddie personally and I know that he would never do anything to “intentionally” hurt anyone. He is a sweet, soft spoken person. This was an accident, plain and simple.
I would like to extend deepest sympathies to the family of the cyclist. I know it is hard to lose a loved one so unexpectedly.
To Eddie – trust that God and the support of your family will get you through this hard time.
A guy riding with his wife following as a safety vehicle on a lone stretch of road. And some other guy driving down this deserted stretch just happens to go off the road in that particular spot and at that particular time to strike a bike rider who had just rode how many miles? Something smells rotten, maybe the feds need to start an investigation?
Im sure the driver that hit the cyclist feels horrible enough without everybodys poor comments. It would be understandable if he meant to hit the guy, but it was an honest accident, give him a break!!
BOY was I mistaken
I thought killing someone by accident was manslaughter and punishable by
10 years.
Still $1100.00 I could just write a check for that and walk away with just what
ever my conscience said to me. I wouldn’t even have to take out
a loan and then every time a payment had to be made I would have to remember
what I had done! Gee doesn’t sound right for a life.
Maybe they should up that to $10,000.00 and it should be wrote out to
the boy scouts of america or some other worthy cause, or wasn’t this
cyclist riding for some cause? Maybe it should be wrote out to that .
Yep, southpaw, we cyclists are not worth very much. Keep a couple fish over the bag limit while out fishing and you’ll run up that much in fines.
As a cyclist, this is disappointing.
If it had occured in Escambia county,the suspension would have been for a year and the fine 1000.00.. The big money comes from the civil lawsuit filed by the family. The act of killing someone in a crash is not criminal unless the person driving was DUI,has a suspended license or related to other criminal activity.
That’s it ??? It only costs $1160 to kill a bicyclist.