Police have issued 179 summonses and 51 verbal warnings to minibus passengers for seat belt offences in a city-wide operation.

The 24-hour blitz ended at midnight and also saw one minibus driver warned and six fixed penalty tickets issued.

In the first half of this year there were 531 traffic accidents involving minibuses, resulting in 848 casualties, compared with 541 accidents and 848 casualties in the same period last year.