NullReference when checking tag via Raycast. How to solve this?

I'm trying to eliminate the ground (tagged "Ground") and my player's transform from a simple raycast which rotates the transform on hit; this is basically to stop my player rotating whenever it raycast hits the ground or itself. I have tried:

• hit.collider.gameObject.tag != "Ground" and

• !hit.collider.gameObject.CompareTag("Ground")

to check the ground's tag via raycast hit, but both are causing a NullReferenceException. If I comment out that line in each script there are no errors and the script runs perfectly fine. I have read through almost 2 dozen questions about this both here and on the forums and come up with the two solutions below. So how can I check an objects tag via raycast? These two ways aren't working:

(Method 1)

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class ObstacleAvoidance6 : MonoBehaviour {
     
     public float turnSpeed = 5;
     RaycastHit hit = new RaycastHit();
     
     
     // Use this for initialization
     void Start () {
     
     }
     
     // Update is called once per frame
     void Update () {
     
         if(Physics.Raycast(transform.position, transform.forward, 1)){
             Debug.DrawLine(transform.position, transform.forward, Color.blue);
             if (hit.transform != transform && hit.collider.gameObject.tag != "Ground") {
                 transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, 90 * turnSpeed * Time.smoothDeltaTime);
             }
         }
         else {
         
             transform.position += transform.forward * 1 * Time.deltaTime;
         }
     }
 }

(Method 2)

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class ObstacleAvoidance7 : MonoBehaviour {
 
     public float turnSpeed = 5;
     RaycastHit hit = new RaycastHit();
 
     // Use this for initialization
     void Start () {
     }

     // Update is called once per frame
     void Update () {
 
         if(Physics.Raycast(transform.position, transform.forward, 1)){
             Debug.DrawLine(transform.position, transform.forward, Color.blue);
             if (hit.transform != transform && !hit.collider.gameObject.CompareTag("Ground")) {
                 transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, 90 * turnSpeed * Time.smoothDeltaTime);
             }
         }
         else {
             transform.position += transform.forward * 1 * Time.deltaTime;
         }
     }
 }