I often back-into parking spaces in the US, too, but for safety reasons. Backing out is dangeous if a ginormous SUV or pickup truck parks beside you 😠 or worse — if there are two, ONE ON EACH SIDE of you 😡 and one must back halfway out of the space before one knows if the coast is clear or not. I've almost gotten hit so many times because I simply could not see around the behemoth beside me that backing-in has become the norm more often than not. 😒 And if it's an SUV/truck that has to wait for me to do it, "So what, you caused this, buddy-boy." Thirty/forty years ago when 85% of the population drove cars (only plumbers and farmers drove trucks) this was not an issue.