How can community customs affect the standard of care in negligence cases?

In the context of negligence law, the standard of care is determined by an objective test: how a hypothetical "reasonable person" would have acted in a given situation.12

Community customs play a role in this assessment by influencing the presumptions that courts use to define what is reasonable. For example, if a specific practice is widely accepted within a community—such as the custom of driving on a particular side of the road, even on private property where formal traffic laws may not apply—courts may incorporate that custom into their evaluation of whether a defendant’s conduct met the expected standard of care.1

By relying on these community-based presumptions, the law establishes an external standard of behavior that helps courts determine whether an individual’s actions created an unreasonable risk of harm to others.1