A California driver who strapped a dish resembling SpaceX's Starlink 'dishy' to their hood was pulled over by police

• California Highway Patrol (CHP) pulled over and ticketed a driver who strapped a satellite dish to a car hood.
• The driver said the dish only obstructed their view on right turns, according to CHP.
• The satellite dish appeared to be from SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, which doesn't yet work on-the-go.

Highway Patrol officers ticketed a driver in California on Friday for driving with a satellite dish strapped to the hood of their car, CNBC first reported.

The dish resembled SpaceX's Starlink internet dish, as seen in photos published on Facebook by California Highway Patrol (CHP).

"Sir I stopped you today for that visual obstruction on your hood. Does it not block your view while driving?" a CHP officer of Antelope Valley asked the driver, according to a CHP Facebook post.

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"Only when I make right turns," the motorist told the CHP, per the Facebook post. The patrol officer had pulled over the driver on a highway in Palmdale, the CHP wrote in the post.

The satellite dish in the photo resembles the SpaceX Starlink dish, which costs $499 for the kit and $99 for the monthly subscription. SpaceX's dish connects Starlink customers to the company's 1,657 satellites positioned in low-Earth orbit.

The CHP said in the Facebook post that it was illegal to mount a satellite dish to the car hood because it obstructs the driver's view. "It's about safety folks," the agency added.

Insider has reached out to the CHP for comment.

The driver told the CHP they were using the satellite dish to get Wi-Fi for their business that they run on-the-go, a CHP representative told CNBC. The representative did not confirm the satellite dish was Starlink's.

The law enforcement agency ticketed the driver for a moving violation, the CHP representative said.

SpaceX didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Starlink's satellite dish, also known as "dishy," comes in the kit with a WiFi router and tripod mount.

Starlink currently provides rural and underserved communities with internet through its satellites. It also has plans to connect the service to moving vehicles, including trucks, ships, and RVs, according to a request the company filed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 9.

The aerospace company also wants to connect Starlink to airplanes and is in talks with "several of the airlines," SpaceX's vice president of Starlink and commercial sales, Jonathan Hofeller, said in a summit in June.