Based on the number of adults I've met who think that nothing is their fault ever, kids need to at least be introduced to the concept of personal responsibility even in situations not completely in their control.

Part of life is learning to prepare for the unexpected. A lot of people are frequently late through a combination of circumstances and their own poor preparation. Random events will happen. You will hit an unpredictable traffic snarl. If you plan your schedule with zero margin, then you are failing to plan properly.

This is honestly a very important lesson for kids to learn. If they have a traffic ticket, and they get a court summons, they damn well better be in court, prepared, at the appropriate hour. The judge isn't going to want to hear your excuse why you're late. Unless you're in the hospital, the judge is going to issue a warrant for your arrest. You can shout this is unfair til you're red in the face, but there are simply times in life where not being on time has very real consequences.

A similar harshness exists for job interviews. If you're late, forget it. It's simply your responsibility to plan for the unexpected.

Sure, sometimes people are late purely due to circumstances. Sometimes you're subject to large unpredictable delays. If a family member needs to be rushed to the hospital, that's hours you're going to lose with no way to predict it.

But 99% of the time when people are late, they're late due to the ordinary everyday hurdles that should simply be planned for. Traffic is not a valid excuse for showing up 10 minutes late. For something important, you should just have a margin that large built into your schedule. Shit happens. And at some point, failing to plan for random but completely expected delays is your fault, not the fault of circumstance.