Monday night, Graham Kislingbury walked into the newsroom and announced to Kim Jackson, Les Gehrett and me that he had just completed, for the second time, a “diversion” program for people cited for failing to wear their seat belt.

No offense to Graham, who is an absolute saint of a human being, but if it were me:

a) I wouldn’t have managed to get ticketed once, let alone twice, and

b) If I had been cited twice, I certainly wouldn’t walk into a roomful of sophomoric editors and admit that I had.

Amid the mocking — I even held up hand in the shape of an L and said “Loser!” — I made a more serious comment: Our seat belt law is dumb.

Don’t get me wrong, I always wear my seat belt — well, except for when I drive the one mile of deserted country road from my home to the forest gate from which I launch my regular runs/hikes with my dog — but I don’t think I, as an adult, should be required to wear one if I don’t want to.

“Statistics show that since we’ve had the law, there have been fewer deaths and serious injuries,” said Graham, obviously a true believer despite his pair of citations (he claims his undoing is a habit of fastening his seat belt after driving for a few yards, thus opening himself up to getting pulled over).

“Fine,” I said, “but at some point, in a free country, shouldn’t people be free to make stupid decisions as long as they’re not harming someone else? I mean, I’m going to wear a seat belt, and I think kids should be required to be in seat belts, but why should I have to wear one? Likewise, I’m always going to wear a helmet on my motorcycle, but I don’t think we should have a helmet law.”

“It’s like smoking,” Kim added. “Go ahead and kill yourself if you want.”

“I agree,” I said. “If you want to smoke, go ahead, as long as you don’t bother me with it.”

So I’ll leave you with two questions:

1) Should we have laws regarding such things as seat belts and motorcycle helmets for grown men and women, and

2) Will the second time be the charm as far as “diverting” Graham from future infractions?