IBM employee from Zurich, Switzerland arrested, jailed for tunnel mistake that may have arisen due to sign colours
February 26, 2025
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.
Shortly before the merger of IBM and Red Hat, an IBM employee from Zurich, Dominic Emmenegger, went to visit Australia and rode his skateboard through a freeway tunnel.
Many people were shocked, both in Australia and in Switzerland. Switzerland has a reputation as a country where people are very rigid about following rules and regulations.
This incident happened almost fifteen years ago but nonetheless, some of the rogue Debianists started a rumor about police and so it seems like a good idea to summarize the facts about what really constitutes a crime, other than simply wasting police time. We already looked at the arrest of two Outreachies in Zurich airport.
The police rumors were started as a kind of social engineering attack to distract people from the real issues in the Debian Suicide Cluster.
There has been a lot of drama in the news this week due to the presence of Chinese warships doing tests 500km off the coast of Australia in international waters. It is important to remember that every Swiss man under 37, including Emmenegger, does military service. But I don't think we can call his stunt on the freeway a formal invasion.
Sadly, one good crime leads to another. People driving through the tunnel were using one hand to steer around the skateboard hazard while using their other hand to pick up their mobile phone and call radio station 3AW. Using a mobile phone while driving is not exactly safe or legal. A fire brigade (MFB) employee stopped to pick up Emmenegger and drive him to the police station. He then calls into radio 3AW to tell them the story. Here is some video and recording of the discussion on the radio program:
The judge in the case ordered him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation due to concerns about his mental health.
We also see a lot of falsified rumors about abuse in open source environments these days. In the real abuse cases in Australia, one of the significant topics has been the question of vicarious liability, that is, the extent to which an employer like the Catholic Church or IBM should be responsible for the actions of an employee.
In defence of IBM and Swiss tourists
Watching the video, the corporate slogan "Think" comes to mind. Yet when you do think about it, some valid defences do appear to be plausible.
I don't think the psychiatric evaluation was really necessary. It may have been useful for the Australian judge to take a trip to Zurich for a few days. She would get some interesting insights into what may have been going on in Emmenegger's mind.
Despite numerous news reports written in English, German, French and Italian in both Australia and Switzerland, I couldn't find one report that questioned the colour of Australian road signs.
In both Australia and in Switzerland, and I'm a citizen of both countries, we use green signs for our freeways. So there should be no risk of confusion. Australia also uses the green signs for highways and other major roads.
Nonetheless, for local roads in both Australia and Switzerland, we use blue signs with white lettering. Even smaller roads use white signs with black lettering.
The Burnley Tunnel is part of a freeway so it is not appropriate for skateboards or bicycles. However, it is one of a very small number of Australian freeways which have a toll. The toll roads have blue signs, like the local roads. However, the colour of the writing is white on blue for local roads and it is yellow on blue for toll roads.
A Swiss person might reasonably see the blue sign and think that it is possible to skate on that road for the simple reason the sign was not green.
An Australian driving in Switzerland might see the green signs on the freeways and not realize they have to buy a vignette to drive on any of those freeways. All freeways in Switzerland require the vignette so there is no other tollway marking as such.
By the time he had entered the road and started a descent into the tunnel he seems to have realized it was not a smart idea but there simply wasn't any way for him to turn around and go back.
Therefore, while his actions created a huge hazard for himself and other vehicles on the road, if we think about it carefully, we can see how it is possible for a tourist to make an honest mistake and misjudge the nature of the road.
Some of the news headlines:
- Skater told he could be jailed for tunnel joy-ride
- Court told tunnel skater not abiding by bail
- Tunnel skater boasts on Facebook
- Swiss skateboarder ordered to pay for ‘tunnel terror’
An IBM employee linked to terrorism? I think not. This was more likely a question of colour rather than terror.
These headlines demonstrate the willingness of the media to take a story and turn it into something bigger than it might really be.
It is interesting to look at how he had skipped bail and given an invalid address to the court. It is also interesting to see how social media, which was a very recent phenomena in 2011, was interacting with his propensity to behave out of character. This is a growing risk for every company today. Social media is a social engineering attack on society at large.
Think harder: who was there first?
According to the wikipedia page, Melbourne's Critical Mass bike rides rode on the same tollway, crossing the Bolte Bridge eight times. That doesn't include other unofficial missions to scout the freeway before it officially opened.
Looking at the photos from the first ride, we can see the Victoria Police bicycle squad are there. How did they arrive so quickly on the top of the bridge?
Quite simply, people told the police about the entire plan. The Critical Mass rides in Melbourne were seen as an authorized public activity. The police are always delighted when people plan an activity in advance and share the plan with police.
Many of the participants were students in fields like engineering, architecture and town planning. Some now have leading roles in the management of public infrastructure. The rides had significant educational and cultural value. Nobody was there to commit crimes.
The late Peter Eckersley was a regular participant in these rides too.
If anybody does want to do filming or other activities on the road, they can contact the CityLink management office and ask for permission. The road is periodically closed for maintenance and that sometimes provides an opportunity for site visits to take place without any unreasonable risks.
Nobody every suffered injury or death on these rides. Why do we have so many deaths associated with Debian, an indoor activity where people sit in front of a computer screen? The Debian Suicide Cluster itself is far more worthy of police attention than the people who asked inconvenient questions about it. █
