Cops would tell you that there's never an acceptable time to drive around with one's licence plate obscured, but pretty much anyone could also tell you that the worst time to do something so blatantly illegal is when you're driving around with evidence of criminal activity in your vehicle (or, as it may be, someone else's vehicle that you stole.)

The Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) Traffic Enforcement Unit shared a cautionary tale on Twitter this week after officers pulled over a black Mercedes with McDonald's coupons stuffed into its front bumper licence plate frame.

"Don't want police to run your plate? Why not obstruct it with a McDonald's flyer?" wrote NRPS Road Safety when sharing a photo from the scene on Tuesday.

In the picture, we can clearly see that the vehicle has blue and white Ontario plates... we just can't see which numbers are stamped onto them behind a sweet Big Mac combo deal.

Under the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, a driver can be fined $85 each for operating a motor vehicle with no plates, without two plates, with improperly displayed plates, without a validation sticker, with an improperly displayed validation sticker, with an obstructed plate or even with a dirty plate.

Might as well just put a bumper sticker on your back that says “hey officer, I’m wanted, please run my plate and see” 🤦‍♂️

— TdotTrucker (@TdotTrucker) January 11, 2022

This particular vehicle's plates were undoubtedly obscured by McCoupons, which is why it was pulled over in the first place — but things quickly went downhill for the driver from there.

What started as a simple Transit Enforcement Stop ended up yielding quite a bust for police, who say the driver was arrested at the scene for three counts of "Possession of Property Obtained by Crime," two counts of "Possess Identity Document of Another" and "multiple other" offences under the Highway Traffic Act.

The motorist also got dinged for having obscured plates, of course, and the vehicle was towed.

We've seen our fair share of altered licence plate fails from local law enforcement officials in recent years, from long-expired and hand drawn to poorly printed on a diaper box, but this story might be more reminiscent of that guy in Guelph who defiantly ate a donut inside Tim Horton's last year to spite lockdown restrictions while breaching probation and carrying a bunch of stolen credit cards.

Not wise at all.