The biggest thing that steers me away from stepping over the hitch area is when I am concerned about getting dirty - I seem to always end up with grease from somewhere on my pants leg.
I will say I happened to look that way and caught sight of DW tripping herself up on the trailer plug / wire yesterday when we got home and started to unload. She stepped over to get something form the back of the TV and almost crashed. She is shorter and less practiced at climbing around / jumping over stuff than I. I will make a point to mention this to her.