Despite settling, family's focus on drunken drivers

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By RICHARD BENKE

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A family that settled its part of a lawsuit against the U.S. government over a wrong-way freeway crash that killed two Nebraska couples remains active in battling drunken driving.

Family members say a day never passes when they do not feel the loss of Larry and Rita Beller, especially on Easter when the six Beller sons, their wives and 17 grandchildren gathered at the family home in Lindsay.

Lloyd Larson, a former Bureau of Indian Affairs worker, slammed a government-owned pickup truck into a car containing the Bellers and Edward and Alice Ramaekers on Jan. 25, 2002. Larson, who was driving drunk on the wrong side of Interstate 40, is serving a 20-year prison term for second-degree murder.

Drunken drivers kill more Americans than al-Qaida and Iraqi rebels put together, the Bellers say, estimating 40,000 to 50,000 people have died since Sept. 11, 2001, in DWI-related collisions.

"Statistics show that drunk drivers kill more people than the terrorists, and there are probably more of them (drunken drivers) than we think," said Dale Beller, one of the victims' sons.

Testimony is to begin here today in a wrongful-death lawsuit that stems from the deaths of the Ramaekers of Norfolk as they returned home from vacation with the Bellers.

The Beller family earlier settled their case for $2 million, but relatives who gathered together Sunday said the money was useful only to drive home the point that the system and society's way of looking at drunken driving needs fixing.

A BIA survey, said to list employees with a history of DWI and other problems who were allowed to drive agency vehicles, may become evidence in the trial, U.S. District Judge William Johnson said Friday.

The government has sought to keep the survey secret, but Johnson said: "Considering that four innocent citizens were tragically and senselessly killed by a drunk driver employed by the government driving a government-owned pickup truck the wrong way on Interstate 40, and considering the overall death, destruction and devastation caused by drunken drivers in the state of New Mexico, there is no question, and I will so find, that the upcoming civil trial involves important matters of great public interest concerning the actions or inactions of government employees."

Johnson said Monday he would admit the survey if the family's lawyers can lay the proper foundation for it.

But he said there was a real question whether they would be able to do that.

He said he would defer a ruling until the plaintiffs show they can produce a witness who knows enough about the survey to lay the foundation needed.

With the proper foundation, "it's coming in and it's a public record," he said.

He also said he would not censor it other than to possibly withhold some personal information, such as Social Security and driver's license numbers and addresses.

The Bellers want the survey to be public.

"In our opinion, those people are just as guilty as Lloyd Larson - they should have basically been sentenced the same day as he was," said Jim Beller, one of Larry Beller's four brothers.