Oliver Wendell Holmes attempted to change the standard for contributory negligence from a reasonable standard, to an objective one. In Baltimore & Ohio Railroad v. Goodman, Holmes suggests that every time you get to a railroad crossing, you must get out of your car, look both ways, and listen. If you didn't take these actions, you are negligent.

• A few years later, in Pokora v. Wabash Railway, Justice Cardozo basically reversed this concept. Preferring behavior in its customary form, as opposed to that artificially developed and imposed from without.

• Restatement of Torts says that, "violation of Statutes is, subject to some qualifications, 'negligence per se'."