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... the reports I've seen publicised are increasingly suggesting that conversing even via handsfree provides a distraction that isn't present when talking to someone actually in the car. (I wish I could remember where I saw that report - as a non-car person, I didn't pay it as much mind as I might otherwise have done). There's been talk of banning it here. Technically, as with handhelds before the specfic ban, it could be associated with driving without dued care and attention. How they'd enforce a specfic ban, I don't know, though, given the first line of defence would doubtless be that it was a passenger was having the conversation or some such...
That’s pretty much what I’ve read as well. Conversing with the person in the passenger’s seat differs from talking over the phone in that both people are in the same space, taking in the same surroundings, facing the same potential hazards.
Still, the temptation to tend to some business while stuck in traffic or on a long, lonely drive between cities out here in the American West can be almost irresistible. For longer than I care to recall I had a daily commute of 40-some miles each way, the afternoon leg of which could take upwards of two hours on a rainy Friday (it’s been known to rain in Seattle and environs, by the way). I know myself well enough to know that had I then had the car we recently bought, with all the gee-whiz hands-free stuff built in, I’d have been using it.