Late, but I came in to say exactly this. I always back into parking spaces unless doing so would put my exhaust against a sidewalk and/or up against a building where I’m more likely to impact people with the exhaust.
It’s because cars steer using their front wheels, not their rear wheels. If you back out of a parking place, you have to pull straight back most of the way out of the spot before you start steering a significant amount, or your front end will hit the car next to you.
As a Valet Driver, we must park the customer cars nose-out in the parking spots so when it comes time to
bring out a car with a minimum of effort and lost time from backing out of a spot.
However…
When shopping at a supermarket, I park my own car tail-out for easy access to my trunk.
It’s all about functionality.
Good point. OTOH …
My car has side-mounted front-end cameras that give decent visibility well down the aisle I’d be pulling forward into once my nose is maybe 8" beyond the adjacent vehicles(s). So before my snout is out far enough to be hit by a reasonable driver going by.
My car also has a single fisheye trunk-mounted rear camera. Which has a narrower field of view than the two front cameras. The view to the sides is not as complete and is more distorted. Any crossing traffic would be closer before being visible.
Punchline being that both sets of cameras definitely enhance my ability to pull out safely in either direction when boxed between vans. But more so for pulling out forward than backwards. So the visibility benefit of pulling out forwards remains, albeit in a reduced form.
At least for my particular fairly new fairly fancy car. To the degree that installation is typical of current practice, it’ll represent other peoples’ experiences too.
Also, backing in to a spot on the right is just easier for most people who have a car with the driver’s seat on the left. This is just more common in practice. Even if the driving path were one-way, with equal room on both sides of the moving car, I think you’ll find more people backing in on the right than on the left. Similar to how some people have a harder time parallel parking on the left side. They invariably end up too far from the curb, because they’re not used to it.
I think you are correct even though I prefer backing up the left. I think it’s easier because the car pivots on the right rear tire. It’s the initial step to parallel parking as well.