BEHAVIOR - 10 Most Common Excuses People make When they Get Late

Article by aanchal awasthi

Making excuses after getting late is the most obvious thing one does. Punctuality is one of the most common traits that people lack. Sometimes it becomes a habit of certain people of being late in reaching somewhere, which gives a bad impression on others. People make random excuses to get away with the tag of a late comer. At some places, being late could be ignored but sometimes the habit of always getting late could be detrimental to relationships like friendship, relationship with business associates or clients. Excuses are always on everyone’s tongue so as to escape from any uneven situation and being late is the commonest of all. The excuses made depend on the time by which a person is late. The list of excuses becomes long, some of which are discussed here as follows.
10. Failure of Alarm Clock

Though this excuse is not generally accepted by people and also not very frequently used by those who get late, but when a person acquires the habit of getting late, the number of excuses required becomes more. So, this excuse also gets included in the list. Earlier people said that their alarm clocks did not work because the battery was finished or the clock was broken but now in this modern age of mobiles, it is difficult to make the excuse of clock failure as every mobile possesses the function of alarm clock. So, in order to fail the alarm, one has to put the entire blame on their mobile phones. People usually say that their mobiles are not functioning properly since last night, due to which the alarm did not work as well. Therefore, the person got up late and eventually he/she is late for the work, meeting or appointment.
9. Helping in a Road Accident

This excuse is generally made when a person gets late by a long duration. To avoid destructive consequences of being late, people generally cook up the heroic stories of their experiences in road accidents. The stories mostly follow as witnessing a car or a motorbike accident while coming and crowd gathered around the spot but nobody came forward to help the victim who was badly injured. And since the person is so sensitive to these views, that the sight could not stop the person calling ambulance and took the victim to the hospital. Therefore, the person got so much late. In this way, people not only clearly escape through the situation but also gain a respect and high spirits in others eyes.
8. Pulled Over By the Police

This excuse is among the most inevitable excuses people make when they get late, as the traffic stops, by cops are one of the most dangerous and unpredictable aspects of law enforcement. Exceeding the limit of prescribed speed of vehicles or crossing the red signal are some of the troublesome incidences that one faces usually. So, this could easily become an accepted excuse for being late.
7. Illness of a Family Member

Illness of family member is one of the freakiest excuses taken up after getting late to reach the destined place. People usually make their grandparents fall ill so that they are not caught. Taking the patient to the hospital or giving first aid at home itself becomes the reason for getting late. Also sometimes, people give fake reasons of their pets falling suddenly ill and taking it to veterinary was extremely necessary. As pets are also a part of family, taking their good care is quite obvious. Making such excuses always seem to be so genuine that people do not raise questions over it.
6. Searching for something very Important

Keeping something at a place and then forgetting is very prominent among people. Usually memory gets weak with getting older but it is these days commonly found in today’s generation as well. Keeping keys, files or other important documents carelessly and then not able to find them later has become a general trend. Sometimes, to keep it at a safer place, the person later forgets where he/she has kept it. So, it becomes a very obvious excuse which is not cross-checked by people. Especially, misplacing the car keys is the favourite excuse, as without them a person cannot reach at his/her destined place.
5. The Person being Unwell

Being unwell is also a very common excuse made after getting late. Nobody can know what a person is feeling i.e., if he/she is healthy or not. So, this becomes a very good option for escapists who reach late at any place. The common diseases that attack a person when he/she gets late are headache, stomach pain, fever etc, as these illness take less time to be cured. Making these excuses also sometimes require a bit of good acting so that the person waiting, or the boss at office could easily believe on him/her.
4. Forgetting something at Home

Forgetting one thing or the other is embedded in human nature. Most often people give an excuse of forgetting something at home for which they had to go back as they realised in the mid way. This includes forgetting mobiles, wallets, or an important file if they are going for any meeting. Getting late on a date becomes a blunder, especially when it comes to boys being late. And for this they have to give a very cheesy excuse and the reason they generally give is of forgetting the wallet at home and he realised when got down to buy a gift or bouquet for his girlfriend and so he had to drive back the whole way back to his house.
3. The Car broke down

The golden oldie of the broken car works every time if not overused, as it is believable and nobody questions over it generally. Also there are so many things that can go wrong with a car, so it becomes a genuine reason that people usually adopt as an excuse. The most common among all is puncture of tyre and replacing it consumed much time. Also over heating of engine, failure of battery etc, are the excuses one takes up to get away from disastrous consequences. Sometimes people say that there was no mechanic or repairing shop nearby, so they had to search for it whole long for about 1-2 hours which ended up in being late.
2. Delay due to Public Transport

In the absence of private vehicles, people rely on public transport to cover their distance. And when the distance is more, then, getting late because of public transport becomes an obvious excuse. The most common excuse people give is that the bus did not turn up while the person kept waiting for a long time. Another reason could be the cancellation of train suddenly without any prior information. And in metropolitan cities, putting blame on metro trains for getting late is very common. The frequency of metro was very low or the metro got stuck on the way due to some technical problem are some of the reasons given and sometimes people even say that someone got injured as his/her arm was caught in between the doors. So, there was a dispute and as a result metro did not proceed for a considerable long time. These excuses are generally accepted and people are not caught.
1. Blaming the traffic

This is the most common excuse one can make after getting late as it is well known, problematic situation in every city. Even if a person is late by an hour or more, traffic could be easily blamed for that and nobody would be able to catch the person. This excuse works mostly in the case of getting late in offices, colleges or schools as there is always a lot of rush during this time. Traffic problems are easily witnessed in every city because of poor traffic control system, lack of patience in people, dead animal on the way. So, it becomes easy to take people into their influence on this excuse as it is not mostly pointed out to be a wrong reason.