Facts
The appellant, [A.] , drove a delivery van with a goods trailer on the A3 highway on February 14, 2014, when he was stopped and checked by the police. During the subsequent weight check, it was found that the permissible axle load was exceeded by 346 kg and the permissible support load of the towing vehicle by 326 kg.
The Uznach Investigation Office convicted the appellant of disregarding provisions/restrictions on the permissible total weight and fined him CHF 600.--. The Road Traffic Office of the Canton of Aargau considered this offense to be a serious offense within the meaning of Art. 16c RTA and ordered the withdrawal of the driver's license for a period of three months.
The appellant appealed this decision to the Department of Economy and Interior of the Canton of Aargau, which rejected his application. The appeal lodged against this decision was dismissed by the Administrative Court of the Canton of Aargau. The appellant then appealed to the Federal Court and requested the annulment of the judgment of September 24, 2015.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined whether the lower court had rightly considered the appellant's behavior to be a serious offense within the meaning of Art. 16c para. 1 lit. a RTA. The appellant was of the opinion that it was only a matter of a minor, at most a moderately serious offense under Art. 16a or Art. 16b RTA.
The law distinguishes between minor, moderately serious, and serious offenses (Art. 16a-c RTA). A serious offense requires both a qualified objective endangerment and a qualified fault. In objective terms, it is required that road safety was seriously endangered.
The…