physical - Why do most public toilet doors open inwards?

The design of most public restrooms greatly caters for the ability to wash hands after the use of the toilette, providing facilities like sinks - sometimes with touchless faucets - soap dispensers, hand driers, paper towels etc. All quite expensive or maintenance heavy equipment.

But when leaving the restroom, in too many cases the design of the facility requires you to open the door inwards usually by pulling a handle.

(Note that the door in my picture is transparent allowing you to see who is on the other side. It leads to a short dedicated corridor, not an open public space. Both attributes greatly reduce the chance of knocking down anyone on either side of the door.)

The problem is obvious, whoever did not wash his hands after using the toilette has touched that same handle passing germs and contamination onto it. In many cases the construction of the doors really requires you to grab the handle, unlike on the way in where you can simply push the door with a shoulder or feet.

Is there a reason for such design or is it modern instance of Cargo Cult?

Answer

Of things you might touch, you should possibly be least worried about the exit door handle (see, Enteric Bacterial Contamination of Public Restrooms, Dr. Germ: Charles P. Gerba, etc.). But, as you say, touch-free flush, sink, and soap are often available, and urine is sterile (potentially no need to wash up anyway), leaving floor, air, and door.

Perhaps there are no official sources to cite because the codes don't prevent doing it right:

A representative for the [Massachusetts] Department of Public Safety told the newspaper that the state building code does not specify the direction public bathroom doors must open.

Yet there is still the issue of opening a door into the path of traffic:

Doors that swing outward allow one to exit without gripping a surface but they must be configured to avoid hitting passing hallway traffic.

The International Building Code for New Jersey mentions:

Doors opening into the path of egress shall not reduce the required width to less than one-half during the course of the swing.

I think what you have, as with so much bad design and user experience, is convention and a lack of incentive to do the harder/more expensive thing (no law requiring it, no directive from the client, etc.). Do you think there needs to be more behind it than that?