I took an Uber the other day.
The route involved going on a major highway.
As I nestled into the backseat with my headphones in, begrudgingly obeying that annoying new seatbelt warning, I noticed something:
My driver had replaced his center console screen with a tablet.
A giant one.
The content of the day?
A screening of a recent Dua Lipa concert, in full glorious HD.
Look, I’m not gonna fault the guy.
She’s got some jams.
Also, John getting on another man for being transfixed by a woman’s Mediterranean beauty would be the most hypocritical thing ever written on this platform.
Anyway.
We were at a red light.
Dua is belting out One Kiss.
But then we start moving.
Highway time now….and Mr. Driver’s attention is still skewing 30% road 70% Dua Lipa.
(It wasn’t like this was some modern EV with self-driving or lane assist, either)
So, naturally I started thinking to myself “WTF is this guy doing?”
But the more I watched him pilot a 4,000 pound machine at 65MPH while enraptured by an Albanian starlet…the more it made sense to me.
The Old World Would Never
Look, I’ve been on this planet for a little while now.
Distracted driving isn’t some new phenomenon.
Ten years or so ago, you could hop in an Uber and be subject to having to eavesdrop on whatever lengthy phone call your driver had going on.
This was doubly the case in NYC taxis- though you’d get the random one with WFAN blaring about the Yankees’ bullpen selections.
It was what it was.
But basically watching a full-on concert while “driving” a car?
This was a new world experience.
If he had been doing this back in 2016?
Instant Snap worthy content.
Would’ve seemed literally insane.
But in this world?
I chose to give grace.
Think About Where We’re At
We’re all being force-fed real news, fake news, AI slop, outrage content, oversexualized BS, and general absurdity all before we even have a chance to eat lunch.
Attention spans are cooked.
The economy isn’t great, we’ve got global conflicts all over, the most famous woman in America right now is a confessed child-killer.
It’s unsettling at its best.
We’re all guilty of using our devices as adult pacifiers.
I’ve had a side of US Open highlights with my dinner every night this week.
(Now should we be doing this while driving, still no lol)
At some point as a collective society we jumped the shark from Good Samaritan culture to me and mine vs. you and yours.
Digital respite has almost become a necessity.
This all adds up pretty significantly.
So…
I Get It.
Uber has to be a rough gig, especially now.
Price of gas, entitled passengers, wild drivers on the roads.
It’s a cortisol-spiking occupation for sure.
Now, had I been in that car with a loved one?
Different ballgame. I’d have had to complain.
Being on my own felt different though.
My fate was in the hands of the 50-something dude with the Dua Lipa crush hurtling down a Florida highway on a sunny late afternoon.
You can’t fight fate.
If here’s where the story ends (that would be a great song for her to cover btw), well…so be it.
While I was monitoring how well we were maintaining our lane and being serenaded by iPad Dua, it made more and more sense.
This guy deals with road rage all day.
A big chunk of his profits go into just keeping the machine he relies on moving.
He’ll work into the night, and deal with “We’re just waiting for our friend!!” and “Do you care if we double up and I sit on her lap?” (we’ve all pulled that).
Somebody might puke in his car.
At the end of the day, he’s a service worker, and modern culture and the ensuing entitlement that’s spread like a plague hasn’t been too kind to service workers.
So if Mr. Driver’s respite from all of this was watching the arranged choreography to the best hits from Future Nostalgia, whatever.
He assumed the typical bro in his backseat wasn’t gonna fuss.
He was right.
So I let the man enjoy his sedative.
Understood completely.
I just hope that moving forward he saves it for when he’s not on the road and waits until he gets home.
Then he can bedrot and scroll all the content that brings him to his happy place…just like the rest of us do.
Hope everyone is enjoying Labor Day weekend.
Love!
-John Abbate
9.6.2026
P.S.- I think this is literally what was on: