A truck driver from Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province is taken to the scene where he allegedly stole two surveillance cameras in the hope of covering up a traffic violation. Photo: Screenshot from video by thepaper.com

The Chinese idiom Yan Er Dao Ling, meaning to cover your ears to hide the sound while stealing a bell, is being used to describe a truck driver who is accused of attempting to steal a pair of surveillance cameras in the hope of covering his tracks after running a red light.  

The driver also didn't seem to realize that the cameras didn't belong to traffic authorities but had been installed near the gate of a local company in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province. Employees may have even watched the driver attempt to dismantle the cameras before calling the police. 

The video shows police questioning a truck driver surnamed Wang, but it's not clear which traffic violation he confessed to.

"There was something wrong with my truck, so I stole the cameras as I didn't want them to catch me," Wang said in the video. Police also took Wang in handcuffs to the company's gate, where he was asked to point where he allegedly stole the cameras. 

The video was viewed about 90,000 times as of Tuesday and many Chinese internet users mocked Wang for not realizing the video that his truck would have been transmitted to police the very moment he committed the traffic violation.

"I thought the idiom Yan Er Dao Ling was a simple metaphor until today," one made a sarcastic comment.

Thepaper.com