BANKING ON SAFETY: You can get a...

BANKING ON SAFETY: You can get a free photo of your youngsters in Laguna Hills today and help ensure their safety too. Independence One Bank of California will host at its branch there “Back to School Safely. . . . Bank officials will provide KidCare Photo kits for your school-age children to help ensure that police have an up-to-date photo and vital information should a child ever be lost of abducted. Says bank spokesman Ed Sondker: “It will at least give parents some peace of mind.”

BARE & UNCOOL: The Laguna Hills safety event includes a bicycle safety session. Police countywide say the biggest bicycle problem remains youngsters not wearing their helmets as required by law. Beginning Jan. 1, police will issue fines--not just warnings--for violators. . . . In Garden Grove, police offer incentives, such as discounts for helmets or food coupons for helmet users. One motorcycle officer there, Karl Mansfield, says the problem is peer pressure: “It’s something they don’t think is cool and neat-looking.”

WIDE KIK: You’re driving to Los Angeles, your radio turned to Orange County’s KIKF-FM country music station (94.3). And just past the Long Beach Freeway, it always starts to fade on you, right? No more. . . . For the first time, starting today, KIKF-FM’s expanded signal will be clear all the way to Santa Clarita in northern L.A. County. Country music is no longer just for “rednecks and truck drivers,” says KIKF President Art Astor. “Now it’s more of a mainstream kind of entertainment for people of all walks of life.”

HEAVY ROCK: Some 60 Orange County rock bands are expected to take part in a one-day local-music festival set for Oct. 22 on the grounds of Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. And all will be donating their services, even though only 15% of the proceeds are going to charity. . . . Why play for free? “It’s a chance to be seen by more than 300 people” in a local club, says festival co-promoter Tony Cardullo (F2).