You're still missing what I'm trying to say, I think. I'm not talking about fatigue, or brief inattention, or anything like that.

I'm saying that the inattention was basically a given. Yeah, at some point the driver went and grabbed a phone. It may have been fiddling with junk in the car, or their fingers, or day dreaming to the extent they were unaware of the world around them.

Yeah, they grabbed a phone. Is that really any different from any of the above? I don't think so. Particularly considering how ingrained the reflex is to grab and fiddle with a phone when bored is. I wouldn't be surprised if they never consciously decided to pick the thing up.

The task was simply unreasonable. Uber should have foreseen this problem and implemented systems to aide and monitor their drivers.