Every day there seem to be more and more policies, rules and laws intended to safeguard our personal wellbeing. From controversial laws making motorcycle helmets mandatory to tire recalls to gun control we seem to have decided that personal safety is a subject for legislation and litigation. I'm all for safety. Who wouldn't be? But somehow, as usual, we've managed to run a reasonable concept into the ground.

Some argue that laws against such things as racial discrimination, pornography and prostitution are futile attempts to legislate morality. I would argue that some of the laws put on the books lately to save us from ourselves are futile attmempts to legislate intelligence.

If the offspring of one influential constituent sustains a goose egg on his noggin because the neighbor kid bonked him with a pingpong paddle on Saturday afternoon, you can bet legislation requiring pingpong helmets will be circulating in appropriate legislative circles come Monday morning.

Comedian George Carlin tells us that kids now have specially designed helmets for all extra curricular activities except one. The family nature of this publication prevents me repeating of which activity he speaks. Every time some fool finds an imaginative way of maiming himself a host of "experts" take to the airwaves lobbying for legislation forbidding the rest of us from following his footsteps. For most of us these campaigns are unnecessary.

That there are laws against bungee jumping from bridges does not alter my plans for the weekend even a little. It's like forbidding me to attack a Kodiak bear with a soup spoon or denying me the option of tying rattlesnakes into square knots.

Do we truly need legislation to prevent us from harming ourselves? Some think so.

One example in their favor is the dilemma that Australian authorities found themselves in down under last week. Tourists anxious to get a better look at sharks in a feeding frenzy actually climbed onto the floating carcass of the whale upon which the sharks were feeding. The vantage point afforded the tourists a better view and the opportunity to reach down and pet the "sharkies" on the nose as they chomped away at the ever shrinking float on which the tourists stood.

Officials scrambled to indict the visitation of morons for something after their rescue but were frustrated when they could find nothing on the books with which to charge them. Apparently Aussie maritime legislators aren't keeping far enough ahead of the stupidity curve and failed to pass a law forbidding loitering on the backs of large, swollen and festering sea creature carcasses.

Which leads me to my suggestion. No one should have to take on the daunting responsibility of trying to anticipate just how stupid people can get. Even if they were successful it would force a further glut of moronic laws into our lives preventing the rest of us from enjoying activities that might carry moderate risk for reasonable and sane people.

The solution is simple. I suggest that stupidity itself be made a crime.

That way, when some yahoo skateboards behind an eighteen wheeler by holding onto the mud flap with his teeth we won't have to make a law against it; we can just arrrest the hitch hiker for beind stupid.

We wouldn't have to actually put them in jail when found guilty. Perhaps we could just require them to wear yellow jerseys like the leader in the Tour de France. That way the rest of us could see them coming and either stay out of their way or start the cameras rolling for the next episode of "Home Video Mayhem".

Of course one good argument for leaving idiots to their respective fates can be made. Allowing them to subtract themselves from the gene pool via this process of natural selection can only help alleviate the problem in the fullness of time.