BOSTON -- The Massachusetts Highway Department is taking action after a Team 5 Investigation uncovered a major Massachusetts road contractor breaking the law, putting drivers' safety at risk.

NewsCenter 5’s Sean Kelly reported Thursday that P.A. Landers, a south shore company raking in millions of dollars to repair our roads, is actually wearing them down with overweight trucks.

The company routinely sent out overweight trucks, Team 5 Investigates reported.

"They’re putting people in danger," said Rep. Jim McGovern, (D) Massachusetts.

Team 5 Investigates obtained a winter’s worth of P.A. Landers sand invoices that were submitted to Mass Highway. Time after time, our review found their trucks hauling illegal loads. The heaviest recorded load was 110,660 -- more than 6,000 pounds overweight.

Team 5's exclusive analysis found 30 percent of the trucks were over the legal limit.

"That’s a pretty pervasive pattern of non compliance with state law," said Sgt. Tom Fitzgerald, the head of the Massachusetts truck team.

"Why do you think that is?" asked Kelly.

"I don’t have any factual basis of knowing. Some companies that don’t have a commitment to safety look at the economics and may find in some cases that it’s economical to take the risk of getting a fine than complying with the law,” said Fitzgerald.

A spokesman for the company declined to comment.

"(P.A. Landers) shouldn’t be able to do it, and they should be held accountable if they do. I mean, bigger, heavier, longer trucks take longer to stop and roll over more easily,” said McGovern.

But what Team 5 found went undetected by Mass Highway officials and watchdogs who were hired specifically to keep an eye on the company after it got caught in 2005 for cheating taxpayers.

A spokesman for Mass Highway told Team 5 "it is not acceptable for P.A. Landers to be delivering sand in excess of statutory weight limits." They also said they’ve asked the company's monitors to investigate so the state can take all necessary and appropriate measures.

"At the heart of all of this is the safety of the men and women who are on our highways every day," said McGovern.

If the company had been caught by the state, they would have been forced to pay thousands of dollars in fines. But some drivers for P.A. Landers told Team 5 the company would rather ignore the law and pay those fines than slow down its operation.