Linas.P

TLDR... Loads of information, which is clearly far too much to digest and certainly to respond. Most of the information you have provided is meaningless as it proves nothing, doesn't even address the argument I made. Have you actually read the article itself of just copy-pasted it? As I have already said - if suspect gets scared by the footage and admits their fault then validity of this footage in front of the court isn't even tested, nor relevant. My argument was - if it would go to the court would it be difficult to prosecute only based on the dashcam footage. I can't see clear statistics for that in your post. Further there are many catch phrases which are very easy to pick-up and which are meaningless or misinterpreted. Just examples of few - "went on to result in prosecutions" - this is generic term that it went to Magistrates court, it does not mean however that prosecution was successful. As per my experience - I had 2 cases which "went on to prosecutions", one was lost because once of CPS messed it up and on second occasion judge just didn't have common sense (defence argument was - "yes I hit the car, but I didn't dent it" and Judge went with judgement that damage could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt). The cyclist who has submitted 213 report is known maniac who deliberately provokes the situation, then films it and submits them to police. So he is professional provocateur and he knows what he needs to film... as I said if you captured actual driver in the video (which is quite difficult to do in dashcam), this is far better evidence than just having video of the car. He almost always captures the drivers and usually provokes them to get out of the car etc... but even then his success rate is just about 50%. Now your statement that date on footage does not actually matter is true... it does not matter at all and even if it is 100% correct it does not matter. That is because dashcam is not certified to provide accurate date and time. As result this makes dashcam footage a "supporting" evidence at best and what is needed for successful prosecution is proving that suspect what at that place in that time. Whatever is the time on video, it is never treated as reliable. Overall, there are areas where I agree with you - dashcam is useful to have in the car as a defence tool and when it comes to insurance it really simplifies the process of getting compensation. However, public should never pretend to be police in the first place and even if they decide to do it, it isn't great in terms of securing prosecutions. So certainly I disagree with both the idea itself and with the statement that you can prosecute simply based on dashcam footage. That said, I do believe that it could be used as a tool to intimidate by police and quite a few people may fall for it - so despite it being inadmissible and poor evidence, it may still result in 60% of suspects simply admitting in front of evidence without even going to court. Simply said - it is not because it is great evidence, but because suspects didn't know better.

It was indeed to of the range... I agree with that. The CH-R I was talking about from my experience was Blue-Edition, basically Dynamic with black roof. I know it just been replaced with new 2021 CH-R GR edition, despite my advise to at least go with Lexus UX, or better with 2-3 years old Lexus NX. In either case we may need to agree to disagree, but there are far more in common between these two cars in areas where it matters than differences. I probably don't even need to say it is just my opinion.

Yes you recommending people doing illegal and immoral thing, I am sure the next thing you will recommend will be not to bother with disposing used tyres and oil, just throw them into the bushes and to the hell with all this environment thing. The only thing I am glad about, that at leas in UK such people like you can't go far as goverment finally started checking this in MOT. What is sad is that goverment still has not came-up with effective process of prosecuting people who actually performs such changes. And apart of failing MOT there are no other consequence... fail MOT, reinstall DPF and off you go. Would be far more interesting to have such cars confiscated and crushed.

I think you comparing apples and oranges... Your Lexus US is Takumi (top of the range model) and what was the trim level your CH-R? Secondly, it may seem like 2 years difference is not that much, but I know for a fact that CH-R had small facelift together with introduction of GR trim. So before you say that I am talking loads of rubbish please check if your are at least comparing similar spec cars. I can know only as much information as you have provided. your signature says it was SE trim, which is de-facto lowest trim available. Obviously, I cannot know it is some limited "launch edition" model which basically is SE-L... That said you still comparing 2006 car with 2021 car and that isn't right. The standards and expectations of quality have generally increased in 15 years, so comparison can be difficult. That is why I am careful with what I say. To to remind you I said that if you compare ES300h with comparable IS/GS then it is step below in quality. Quite specifically that comparable car would be 2020/2021 IS300h Fsport/Takumi is we are comparing against 2020/2021 ES300h F-sport/Takumi.... you can't take 10 years older car of lower trim and compare it with brand new ES with higher trim and then say ES is just as good! ...but this is what I can see people do continuously. They get into the brand starting from used lower spec. car, overtime they build appreciation for the brand and buy newer higher spec car and say... "ohhh my car is so much better than my old one". Yes, because it is 10 years newer and 2-trim levels higher spec. + placebo and confirmation bias effects associated with spending large amount of money on the object you like. As I said - if somebody are really into ES and they really like it, that is great... your money, your car... more power to you. But if you compare it like for like with IS/GS it replaces and the time scales for new model year, then it is not only isn't improvement, but arguably worse quality than car it replaces. So my only advise, test drive these cars back to back before you make decision and don't go by advise from people who moved into ES from 15 years older car as their experience arguably isn't very objective.

I have looked in F-Sport Takumi when it was launched, so I assume 2019 model and I have looked into Takumi which is on dealership floor now so I assume 2021 model and both of them have exactly same quality which was very disappointing in my opinion. As well I note that you owned GS mk3 in low trim (SE) and my comparison was with mk4 in high trim. I have never tested low trims on any Lexus so I really don't know how bad they get, for IS300h I only ever tried F-Sport (probably 5 different ones) and GS only Premier and F-sport. I appreciate that owning car for extended period of time can help you with - 1) finding less apparent issues with it and 2) just learning to live with it as it is, but if the car has unsatisfactory martials and build quality whilst sitting on the dealership floor I just can't see how that could improve after X years of owning it. The previous gen Lexus (GS mk4 2012 and IS mk3 2013) were already step down in quality of the cars they have replaced and ES is step below them, to the level where I don't even see the point of having Lexus badge on it. I am sure there always been some hard plastics in Lexus if you go looking for them, but at least around the driver and in obvious places it was all soft-touch material and padded corners everywhere. ES has hard and rattily plastics right in your face and it took no more than 1 second for me to pick-up on them. I mean sure - people can selectively ignore it and pretend they are not there, so that is certainly your choice...

It is... for example all the windows switches are surrounded by hard textured plastic which is extra cheap, as well the area around gear shifter. Neither IS, nor GS has this. I think overall, it is better in areas where one would expect 8 years newer, new generation car to be better. Tech is better etc. but quality is not, the sound proofing is not as good and the materials themselves are not as solid. It does not feel Lexus at all, same like UX... again driven both Lexus UX and Toyota CH-R and they are carbon copies just with different badges. The Camry is step below ES, because ES is based on Avalon and Avalon is carbon copy of ES. I guess what makes ES less offensive is that we don't have Toyota Avalon in UK, so now way to compare like for like and see that it is just badge engineering. In either case that is my experience and opinion, whoever wants to buy it I suggest to test drive GS/IS and ES back to back and decide themselves. Obviously, don't compare 2013 poverty-line IS300h Exec/Luxury with 150k miles against brand new ES300h Takumi, take 2019 IS300h F-Sport or Premier at least.

I think you missing the point. Yes if offender voluntary admits to the charges it is all great. They may as well go to police themselves and surrender, you actually don't even need video in that case. So the Dorset show video just shows occasion of somebody admitting it without challenging it. Regarding your second point - again, it is has part of truth in it, if offender admits the offence it may not need to go to court. But at the same time you are wrong - it says in only 1-2% cases the witness attendance was needed, not that witnesses only attended in 1-2% of times. Now I take your point, majority of public have no legal knowledge and police will pretend in the interview that they have valid evidence against them, which is not at all the case. Don't forget police is legally allowed to lie to obtain the evidence and that is what they do to scare people with video which is meaningless. If they get admission this way then all is great, but if culprit wisely say "bugger off with this crap" then it takes police nowhere, because that video in itself proves nothing, it is not valid evidence, because the dates and times on it can't be validated. Final point, and the quote from nextbase FAQ is total BS. You can say anything you like on your witness statement, but what you say there is literally your word against word of the suspect. If you say that time stamp on your video is incorrect, then congratulations - you have just made your video invalid! Any half-sane lawyer will use that to dismiss the evidence, the defence in this case is extremely simple "the witness alleges that I was in location X on the time Y, but I was not in that location and the date/time on the video is incorrect, or does not match with the date on witness statement" - end of story, you case cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt, because it can't prove that defender was there at the time/date you allege. Maybe it actually happened, week, month, year before or after and the car was owned by different person at the time?! They have committed the offence in the car in your video, but without valid date/time it can't be enforced. If you have actual person who can be easily identified in the video then it is much easier, but if you have just a car then it is next to impossible. Don't forget that RTA does not apply here, so there is no such thing as car keeper having to give you the information of who was driving the car. They can simply say - it wasn't me and it is CPS job to prove otherwise (presumption of innocence)... it is hard enough to prove it using evidence provided by public, but it is completely impossible to prove it evidence itself contain such inaccuracies as time/date being invalid or not present. In short using dashcam footage to police the streets is very optimistic, it may work if you get onto fool and they just admit to everything, but as soon as it is challenged it is very difficult to prove in court. The standard for proving criminal offence is very high and dashcam footage is simply not enough.

The andoid clones are not only far easier to retrofit, because they specifically designed to fit old vehicle with old wiring, but as well they are far far superior than newer Lexus system i.e. they support Apple Car Play and android Auto, they have native google maps which are more accurate and native traffic alert feature which is just on another level from Lexus Navigation. In short, what I am saying - trying to buy newer model (facelift) sat-nav is little bit pointless, because it not only going to cost far more, it is incompatible and inferior in function to relatively cheap Chinese android clones. Now since you have bought it already I don't know what to suggest, you either need to find the correct wiring, or you need to find diagrams for wiring and somebody who can make it (if you can't do it yourself). I have looked into my archive of Lexus workshop manuals and wiring diagrams, but I don't have one for facelift Lexus NX. Other option - you can try selling it and buying android copy which not only going to work, but it will be cheaper and better.

I have been on couple of those and it is frankly a joke. So last time I got invitation I filled in the form and receive the call from Lexus GB, lady on the phone took my details and asked what cars I am interested in etc. I said RC-F and LC, she then set the time for me for Saturday 2PM and said she will make sure both cars will be available for test drive... so far so good. What I was expecting - glass of Champagne, maybe some snacks and dozen or so cars (not LC obviously, but in total) which they want to get rid of and which they willing to agreed good deals for. Came Saturday, I got to my Lexus dealer and there is nothing special about the day... sat in 7 people queue until receptionist came to me and I explained here why I am there. It took literally an hour before salesperson came to me saying "what car you are interested in?" He had no clue FFS! So I had to explain him again why I am there. He looked like he is literally hearing this for the first time in his life and then explained that they do not have either of the cars available. Thanks for wasting my time I guess. In the end we gone through few option they have available in franchise and all of them were exceptionally bad deals. Eventually, dealership MD came around and he had LC500, so I was offered a test drive, so I guess that was the only positive, by complete accident. In the end they sort of took note of what I want - in nutshell higher miles car where mileage is represented in price (I am just cheapskate like that) and it has to be black/white with red interior...They said they will call me when they have something in stock... this was January 2020 and I haven't had the call since. I assume no care came to match mi criteria 😄 In short - what are "Lexus VIP events"... just fancy name for semi-warm calling people they have on record as Lexus owners and trying them into dealership. There are no special deals or anything like that, they just want you in the dealership, because higher "footfall" means statistically more purchases. Now I am sure that if I wanted IS300h, or CT200h, or NX/UX they would have had something more to offer. Secondly, it was start of Covid conditions, not yet full lockdown but maybe that is what made it unusual. As for ES... I am very critical about that car as frankly it isn't even Lexus and it is very obvious. Cheap hard plastics inside, overall build quality not bad (it is Toyota after all), but it does not feel luxurious at all. Ride as well is are one would expect 300h to drive, but both IS300h and GS300h are far better cars form driving perspective and more luxurious. If you really interested I have recently seen ES300h Takumi (I guess that is what you mean by Premier) in Lexus Reading. Not sure regarding the price as it is new car on their dealership floor, 200 miles on the clock.

Non-sense. Best option is not to drive DERV vehicle which is fundamentally dirty. And removing the emissions equipment is not only illegal, but as well immoral. Sure your engine will be better off and you get better MPG, but that is at cost of simply allowing pollution to leave your car untreated. @Aaron G - it is great video, although I don't think people made right conclusion out of it. Yes all emissions control systems hurts the performance and efficiency of the diesel engine, but it is not because they are bad, it is because diesel engine is fundamentally bad. As clearly explained in the video, it is normal for "well running" diesel engine to emit high amounts of NOx and some DPM/Soot, neither are good for health so it just makes sense that something has to be done with this pollution... hence EGR was introduced. Is EGR good solution? No absolutely because we talking about the engine which is fundamentally bad and we trying to fix the symptoms and not the issue. The solution is not to remove the overcomplicated mess of emissions equipment, but not to buy DERV car in the first place.

The information provided above just goes to prove what I am saying. 1-2% results in Court Appearance, meaning 98-99% can't be prosecuted. Why? That is because just having dashcam record most often (98-99% of the time) is not sufficient evidence. Yes in my case it was accident which caused damage to me personally, so obviously I was willing to attend the court, but I feel CPS made multiple procedural errors in the way they handled the case. As I said, video captured by public is not great evidence, if there is solid case against suspect then video is just a cherry on the top, but if there is no cake to begin with, then there is no point in having the cherry 🙂 Where dashcam works however, is in opposite way - proving that you were not at fault (as per LenT example, and I had 2 incidents like that myself). So if in the case I mentioned above, the other driver would have stopped and accused me of being at fault, I would have won the case with ease. But the other driver didn't bother stopping and made it very difficult to prove it the other way around. The lesson I have learned in this case - don't bother with police, because they are useless unless there are injuries. What I should have done, I should have gone straight to claims management company, because it was clearly non-fault case... and they would have simply taken all the damages from Third Party insurer. Police just wasted my time and then buried the case in their incompetence.

Not effective at all, because they are not considered as an evidence in majority of cases. If somebody crashes into you before driving through the red light, or if you capture car hitting the pedestrian and leaving - yes that may count. But if you take video of people speeding (in particular) or even driving through the red light, or committing other types of traffic offences it does not count. I know far a fact prosecution in such cases will fail. Police may take it as evidence and may try to prosecute, but that is because police have no clue about the law. As well it depends on the suspect - if they simply admit, then it may work, but if they challenge the evidence it will fail. So what is the difference between the first example and second? Well in first example you have recorded incident and the time it is recorded is evidence if police actually attends the the incident (in case of hit and run it is unlikely, in case of injured pedestrian it is likely), the video itself just comes together with the report as additional information. However, if you just submit the video to police, the timestamp on the video invalidates it right away - simply because there is no way to prove the time stamp is correct and if time is not correct, then evidence is not valid. Here is example from my personal experience - guy hit my car driving through red light and run away,I had it on camera, police refused to attend, then they dropped the case as "not in public interest to investigate" 3 times, eventually they agreed to investigate it when I threatened to sue the police itself for neglecting their duties and then CPS lost the case in Magistrates court as it could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt despite dashcam video. I don't know the details as they didn't call me as a witness, but I am quite confident it failed because police failed to attend and record the details. In short - video recorded by public rarely counts as evidence in criminal cases, most serious driving offences are criminal and thus dashcam footage is not good enough evidence.

Should not forget - the government which is quite openly committing genocide... yes it is very good point, being owned by Geely, which is basically subsidiary of PLA is certainly one more reason to avoid the brand. To make it more visual - this guy (de-facto Volvo owner) certainly does not look like supporter of democratic values:

When Volvo announced it, I straight away crossed that brand out of my interests. They still going by same misguided opinion that peed kills and they will do whatever it takes even when it means taking away freedoms of owners and utility away from their possessions.

Yes, despite all the technology the actual policing is still the best way, simply because there is human element to it. Just speed itself does not mean much, because there is huge difference between say person speeding by 30MPH (so doing 100MPH) on completely empty motorway in the middle of the night and somebody driving like maniac, jumping from lane to lane, undertaking, cutting people-off in the traffic at 60MPH when the rest of the traffic is moving at 50MPH. In one case it could be argued it isn't even dangerous and nobody was affected, but huge fine will be issued, in other case it is clearly idiotic, but speed cameras won't catch it. As such actual police officer observing the situation could make decision to simply warn the person and let them learn (or sometimes don't even bother stopping them), or to issue a fine because circumstance warranted it. Finally, multiple studies have concluded that the severity of the fine does not corelate with effectiveness of the policy, however the likelihood of the fine does. So for example having £1000 + 12 points fine will not work if likelihood of being caught is low, but having even £1 fine every time you exceed the limit would work if it would be guaranteed one get's it. That is why average speed cameras works better than spot cameras and that is the same reason why we see this behaviour, where people drive like maniacs from camera to cameras... that is because they know where cameras are and they know there is no point to follow the rules anywhere expect in front of the camera.

I would call that common sense... which... as we all know is not common at all and even then sometimes isn't even sensible. Going to @wharfhouse examples... and if we compare his hobbies to what the goverment is currently doing on roads - they are trying to put fences around mountains because once in a while there is avalanche and on top of that they enforcing the ropes not to be longer than 2 metres and banning climbers from climbing any ledge higher than 3 metres, "safety... you know"... You just can't save everyone and even then only focusing on speed limits doesn't even address core issues.

Exactly - the speed limit reduction only affects those who are already sensible. And to add to the argument ... some driver may have been perfectly happy to drive at 50MPH, but now they becoming criminals by overtaking at even 40MPH. Has it improved situation? No I would argue it made it worse. As well thanks for sharing your experience, because that is exactly what I have seen everywhere. I would as well link it to lack of actual policing - police now simply puts the camera and send the fine via post... not so much use when somebody flies past on drugs and in stolen car. This was well illustrated by this epic sketch, yes I know it is a joke, but it has so much accuracy in it... that it almost not even funny:

No... you are right, it is now 3 years: https://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/faqs/how-do-i-know-if-i’m-eligible-speed-awareness-course I am sure it was 2 years when it took it... sorry it sounds like you will have to stick to speed limits for another year. Other thing, make sure you don't speed in areas of MET (London, Birmingham and Manchester ... maybe few more) - they do not offer SAC, you get points straight away.

You don't need to be worried about my house order... Even suggestion about DPF removal moves your oppinion in category of irrelevance. In your previous post you have suggested that you will be looking at removing DPF and EGR and I quote because "those are the only issues with this car", thus it will be golden once done. Now whenever you have them removed or not, that is not my issue (I hope not), but if you did then there would be likely link between the issue you have. In either case IS220d is piece of garbage engineering and I would not even park next to it just in case it somehow causes my car to fail. But hey... if it is fine for your, then I hope you will enjoy it, especially considering it was "not because of the money", but because of some mystical benefits you have purchased it. And if you think IS220d does not require more maintenance than IS250, then feel free to find me the thread where somebody is complaining about IS250 idle ...

Surely, that was not caused by them traveling at 30MPH?! 😄 And here is the thing - people who end-up upside down in the middle of the road after taking out walls of the houses and light-poles don't care if speed limit is 20, 30 or 100MPH, nor if it is enforced. There are no brains in their skulls so this speed limit won't affect them, however it will affect all normal people who drive at "safe speed" and by feel and who may lose their license, their job and their life because they did 25MPH in stupid 20MPH zone in the middle of the night. P.S. As far as I can remember it is 2 years, not 3. Unless that has changed. I did my course for 2MPH over in 50MPH roadworks section on motorway... as always, it was empty road at night and no ***** road worker to be found anywhere.

LOL... the guy who said maintaining DERV IS220D isn't much more complex than petrol IS250 and who has EGR blanked off and DPF removed. Maybe start by looking at what your EGR does and where is your DPF? May explain some of the issues - surely there were sensors for both, which are "programmed-out" or blanked off. Don't you think tooling around sensors could have something to do with it?

Thanks for opening can of worms! Speed limits are absolutely ridiculous as they are. 30MPH I understand in town and it is reasonably sensible, but 20MPH are clearly unjustified. They say that apparently it is 60% more likely for person to survive after being hit at 20MPH, however I think they looking at it from wrong perspective! The "person" should not be on the road in the first place, if they are not on the road then it is 100% they will survive being hit, because they won't be hit! Simple! Not only that, but in practice lower speed limits encourage pedestrians to cross the road in stupid places and they are less careful as well. Meaning - you may reduce death rate from collision by 60%, but you may increase number of collision 3 times (that means 20% more deaths, not less). Not only that, but death even at 30MPH are rare, so reducing them by 60% isn't even relevant, however injuries from any collision in car are common all the way to walking pace (3-4MPH). So 20MPH zones are absolute non-sense. It is not fault of driver that pedestrians are careless and jay walk into the road without looking. The correct measure would be to educate pedestrians, penalise them if needed. The next step-up... there are many roads limited to 50MPH despite being 3-4 lanes wide, with middle partition and overall built at the quality of motorway... again absolute madness. If the road infrastructure allows higher speed, then higher speed should be applied. Even 70MPH... and especially reason behind it are retarded. It was set-up as temporary limit in 60's and it is still there, the cars have long changes and even our skills and perception to speed have changed. Not only that we have national limits (60MPH) on narrow single lane roads where no sane person could safely drive at that speed. yet we allow only 10MPH more on 4 lanes super-wide and super-straight motorway. This is just stupid. Most normal countries have 80-90MPH and even that is on the slow side. Where is the problem? The problem is that driving in UK despite being considered "privilege" is very inclusive and that is bad thing. Our training, the rules etc. tries to make as many people eligible to be on the roads as possible, but it is achieved by lowering the standards for everyone. So instead of having fewer, better trained and generally better drivers (making it more exclusive), we have every retard and it's cousin on the road and then we have to fall back on reducing speeds and retarding all infrastructure, because realistically we have people on the road who can't even leave their driveway safely never mind driving on the road with other drivers. This clearly becomes and issue when we consider that drivers should not drive at the speed limit, but at the "safe speed" for the circumstances - how can one expect retard to know what safe speed is, when they can't leave their parking without hitting the rubbish bins?! Sadly there is no solution, in this country we hate drivers anyway, so any argument made by motorist (not matter how valid) will always be dismissed.

All true... Are you in charge of product description as well? 😄 Seems overly convenient to have oil which is recommended for precisely two cars you own - "Suitable for: Lexus IS250 4GR-FSE, Toyota GT86 / Subaru BRZ FA20 and many more. Please refer to your owner’s manual."

Just to note - magnetic plug isn't really a preventative measure, it is more useful in a sense that "if something horrible happens" you will know and it will be obvious. Certainly does not hurt having it, but in healthy and well maintained engine it is kind of unnecessary. If you really have piece of metal in the engine or a significant shaving then it is likely that engine is gone anyway. However, it is more likely that you simply going to have oil diluted with with petrol or carbon due to blow-by (especially on higher mileage cars) than having actual pieces of metal. As for the HKS or Shell oil I can't argue, I am sure it is great product and being fully synthetic it will be better than Magnatec (again fully synthetic Castrol would be Edge, Magnatec is hydrocracked semi-synthetic). However, having even cheap oil replaced every 5k miles will be more beneficial than having HKS oil replaced every 10k miles. Likewise replacing oil more often would achieve more than magnetic drain plug i.e. it will drain the contaminants from the engine if there are any and would give engine fresh oil with fresh additives to clean and protect. Now obviously, you could argue that replacing HKS oil every 5k miles (or even more often) is even better, and you are correct, but at this point I feel we getting into diminishing returns territory. P.S. Looking at the price of 4L of HKS it actually seems like good deal for £27 and fully-synthetic oil.

Amurica have their own issues and I don't agree with some of their gun laws (nor habits of owning arsenal sufficient to equip small army), but to have a right to own gun for self-defence and to shoot intruded at your home seems like logical idea. You will be surprised to learn that there are actually far more countries that allows guns for self-defence (and especially at your own home) than not. UK and Ireland is in minority with overly strict laws - gun law here is comparable to countries like Belarus, China and North Korea (dictatorships), not exactly fitting place for UK. Now I certainly see no issue with shooting intruders dead if they decided to invade one’s home, but when I said "self-defence" I actually didn't even mean guns. In UK even if you take knife and stab them, as it happened to this poor pensioner (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43639183), you may be charged with murder, which is absurd! The key issue why I don't consider UK "self-defence" to be proper, is what is called "reasonable force" which is most absurd thing ever. In nutshell it means that you can only use "proportionate" force to level of threat. Now that would seem fine at first, but once you start looking at all the caveats it becomes absurd very quickly. In practice it means you can't attack or injure burglar if they are not attacking you and simply want to take your belonging. From law perspective their crime of stealing your stuff is lesser crime than you breaking their arm or stabbing them. Even kicking of punching them could be unreasonable! So the only thing you can do is to push them back and hope they won't fall over and injure themselves. Are their criminals or babies?! As for my statement it being UK specific problem, sure there are countries far worse than UK e.g. South Africa or Russia, but in general such type of crime - i.e. breaking into home to get car keys when it is occupied is extremely rare. Fair to say even in UK compared to other types of car theft it is not common, but in comparable developed European countries it is so rare in fact that I can't find any statistics of that ever happening. This is simply because most countries have far more sensible self-defence laws and the risk of going into occupied home for car keys just does not worth the reward as such thieves always prefers not getting into contact with owners at any cost. Finally, what "proper self-defence" means - in my opinion that would be allowing people to defend themselves and their belonging at any means necessary, including killing, rather than proving whatever "reasonable force" means. Sure if thief is running away and you catch them two block away this isn't self-defence, but as long as they are in your home and refuse to leave, there should be no limits on what you can do to force them out. Should you be able to take axe, golf club or baseball bat and use it if thief refuses to leave - absolutelly!