Image: California Highway Patrol
According to The Verge, a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer stopped and ticketed a driver on Friday for sticking a Starlink user terminal, lovingly known as Dishy McFlatface, right onto the middle of their car’s hood, which constitutes a “visual obstruction”.
“Sir I stopped you today for that visual obstruction on your hood. Does it not block your view while driving?” the officer is quoted as asking in a Facebook post from CHP Antelope Valley. “Only when I make right turns…,” replied the driver of the Toyota Prius.
California state law prohibits drivers from attaching view-obstructions like objects hanging from a rear-view mirror, poorly positioned GPS mounts, objects that hinder their view of the road, and more to their cars.
“Yes, it is in fact illegal to mount a satellite dish to the hood of your vehicle,” said the CHP in its Facebook post.
During the traffic stop, the driver told the CHP officer that they were using the Starlink terminal to have Wi-Fi for a business they run out of their car.
According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Starlink terminals aren’t meant for cars as, in their current state, they are “much too big”. Starlink’s high-bandwidth, low-latency connection is also overkill for anything you’d need while on the road.
Not connecting Tesla cars to Starlink, as our terminal is much too big. This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks & RVs.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2021
Recent FCC filings have revealed that SpaceX definitely has plans to take Starlink mobile, but the mobile service is intended for aircraft, ships, large trucks, and RVs. SpaceX is already in talks with “several” airlines to provide in-flight Starlink Wi-Fi aboard their planes.
As of last month, Starlink has over 69,420 simultaneous active users across 12 countries. SpaceX expects the broadband service to have around 500,000 subscribers in the next 12 months.
