Authorities have discovered that a tanker truck driver involved in a crash that melted bridge girders on Atlanta's I-285 has a suspended license.

According to The Atlanta Constitution, police arrested Jacob Phiri of Decatur, Ala., on charges of speeding and driving with a suspended license. His Georgia license was suspended after he failed to appear in court on a traffic ticket.
In the wee hours of the morning June 9, Phiri's gasoline tanker hit a car left in the travel lanes after a minor accident. In trying to avoid the car, Phiri lost control of the rig, which flipped on its side and slid about 300 feet. The driver barely escaped through the windshield before about 1,000 gallons of spilled fuel burst into flames. Several lanes of I-285 are still closed because of the fire damage.
Harold Linnenkohl, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, told the paper that Phiri must have been going faster than the posted 55 mph speed limit. Police estimated his speed at 77 mph. "My contention all along was, I didn't care what was sitting in the road," Linnenkohl told the paper. "If he came up on the accident and couldn't stop, he was either asleep and couldn't see it or was going to fast."
The state will try to recover the cost of highway repairs from the trucking company's insurance company.