Yeah, I’ll park a while away if it’s daytime, but I do get the creeps when I walk through an empty parking lot at night. I used to live in the US and drive regularly, and now I live in Germany and don’t, but I can therefore completely avoid parking lots even though I’m walking further, which honestly makes me feel a lot less targetable. I suspect the difference in general violence levels between the two countries has more to do with the difference in my perceived safety though.

That could be true in some cases. Not so much when it's the middle of the day, in rich suburbia, with your family, and there's a lot of other people around.