I was taught to always back-in to a parking spot when possible. Reason being, backing up (now or later) takes slightly longer, and while you have the extra ~30 seconds now, you may not have the luxury of that extra time when you need to leave (e.g. in some sort of evacuation order). So, spend the time now to save yourself later.
Edit: I was taught this by my dad who did a lot of work at chemical plants and oil refineries. Probably made more of a difference for him than for a software engineer like myself. Regardless, the principle still applies.
My work has taken me to a refinery a few times. It always made me very uneasy being in a place where they taught us to back in to parking spaces in orientation and there are "explosion proof" shelters in various places. Having watched US Chemical Safety Board videos doesn't help either.
Backing in to parking spaces is standard clipboard warrior best practice stuff and has been for the past couple decades. It reduces backing accidents from a tiny number per huge number of man hours to a tinier number per huge number of man hours on average (not necessarily for a specific work flow, best practices are not a replacement for good judgement and evaluation of specific circumstances). It has nothing to do with the safety of a job site and has more to do with the size of the company that runs it (small companies don't tend to issue blanket policies for that kind of stuff).
Edit: I was taught this by my dad who did a lot of work at chemical plants and oil refineries. Probably made more of a difference for him than for a software engineer like myself. Regardless, the principle still applies.