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There is an article about an irrelevant celebrity arrest. It ends with this anecdote:

a resident recalled his run-in with the cop when he was talking on the speaker while driving. The Sag Harbor [police officer] charged him a $145 ticket for talking while on mobile while driving. When the resident protested that he was on speakerphone, the rookie cop instructed him to use Bluetooth as per the traffic instructions.

In the UK this would be legal, where the rule is that "you must not use a device in your hand for any reason". While it matters little that the rules vary between the UK and the US, many such questions here come down to state law and a search seems to indicate that this could vary by city. Cars and mobile phones tend to be somewhat mobile.

Is there some US wide set of rules that if followed is sure to be count as hands free mobile phone use? I can imagine the same situation occurring in the EU, where many people travel between countries that may have differing rules, so answers for this continent or even both would also be interesting.

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    Certainly not in the US, each country on the continent has its own laws and within the US, each state has it's own laws.
    – Tiger Guy
    Commented Jun 23 at 10:29
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    Arguably if you're using the device itself, speaker or not, you'd have to hold it in your hand to initiate/answer the call. "Continent" is a big thing. The only continent covered by a single country is Australia, but even there different territories have different laws.
    – littleadv
    Commented Jun 23 at 16:08

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Are there continent wide standards for what constitutes a hand free phone wrt driving?

Short Answer

No.

These rules are established on a state by state basis in the U.S. and otherwise on a country by country or first level of subnational government basis, for the most part.

Long Answer

Is there some US wide set of rules that if followed is sure to be count as hands free mobile phone use?

No.

While there are some uniform standards for traffic laws in the U.S., cell phone use is not among them. For example, the law on when minors can use cell phones differs from one U.S. state to another.

In the U.S., the "dormant commerce clause" probably prohibits banning having certain kinds of equipment installed in a car from out of state (or requiring that certain kinds of equipment be installed in a car from out of state) that is merely passing through, although it could have laws against using that equipment in particular ways within that state.

The European Union didn't, at times when it was relevant, even have a standard regarding which side of the road someone can drive upon. Traffic laws are not within the scope of what the E.U. has fully harmonized between member countries.

The variation in laws isn't maximal

Now, of course, this doesn't mean that there are 53+ actually different substantive rules in North America or several dozen actually different substantive rules in Europe, even though each jurisdiction separately adopted its own rules. There probably aren't even that many reasonable choices of substantive rules on the topic.

Legislators aren't particularly original. Also, there really aren't any deep seated preconceptions regarding phone use in a car that could lead to regional variation, because this is a technology that is quite young. Typically, most jurisdictions will end up following, often intentionally and by design, the laws adopted by the first jurisdictions to pass laws on the topic.

But, as a driver, you can't rely on the law in one jurisdiction on a continent being the same as in another jurisdiction on a continent. There is definitely some variation from one place to another, even within the same continent.

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