Two cyclists are dead after a 23-year-old unlicensed driver struck them on a North Texas highway — and the crash report makes it hard to find much ambiguity about what went wrong.
On the morning of December 20th, a Chevrolet pickup collided with two cyclists riding along FM 455 near Pilot Point, a rural stretch of road east of Fritcher Road in Denton County. The victims — Scott Mages and Andre Kocher — were members of the Frisco Triathlon Club on a group ride when the truck hit them. Neither survived. What the crash report reveals about the moments before impact has since drawn sharp attention from law enforcement and the broader cycling community.
What the Crash Report Shows
Police reported that the driver admitted to officers he was “not paying attention to the road at the time of the accident.” That alone would be damning enough. But the crash report also found that the driver was speeding — and, notably, had no valid driver’s license at the time of the collision.
FOX 4’s Amelia Jones noted that according to the crash report, the driver “was also speeding and not paying attention” — a combination that, on a rural farm-to-market road with cyclists present, proved fatal. WFAA separately confirmed those findings, stating the report identified speeding and inattention as direct contributing factors to the crash.
The driver also refused alcohol and drug testing after the collision. He’s cooperating with investigators, authorities say — though the refusal to test will likely loom large as the case moves forward.
The Scene That Morning
Officers responded at approximately 8:19 a.m., arriving to find two cyclists knocked from their bikes and critically injured. One victim was transported by ground to Celina Methodist Hospital, where he later died. The other was airlifted to Medical City Plano — and didn’t make it either. Both Mages and Kocher were identified as part of the same club ride, out on what should have been a routine Saturday morning on the road.
There’s a grim detail buried in the timeline, too. The driver didn’t stay at the scene immediately — he drove a short distance before turning back. He returned before officers arrived and has, according to authorities, been cooperating since. Whether that cooperation translates into charges — and what those charges might look like — hasn’t been publicly announced.
A Familiar, Frustrating Pattern
How many times does this story have to be told? An unlicensed driver. Excessive speed. A confession of inattention. Two people who woke up that morning to go for a ride and never came home. The details shift; the outline doesn’t.
The Frisco Triathlon Club has not yet issued a formal public statement, but the loss of two members on a single group ride is the kind of thing a community doesn’t quickly recover from. For cyclists across North Texas — and really, anywhere — the crash on FM 455 is another data point in a conversation about road safety that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast.
The investigation remains ongoing. But the crash report, at least, doesn’t leave much to the imagination: no license, too much speed, and a driver who, by his own admission, simply wasn’t watching the road.
Scott Mages and Andre Kocher were. They just had no way of knowing it mattered.
