Really - it's that bad out there?
AW, are you in the suburbs or more the urbs?
There isn't really an urban/suburban thing here--it's a giant sprawl that varies in character significantly over relatively short distances.
I'm in the Metrocenter area, findable with googlemaps/etc, if you want to see the city layout around here. I am almost always, these days, within 5 miles of MC, with rare trips outside that (taking a dog to the vet, picking something up on freecycle/trashnothing/etc, and so one). Most of my rides are only about 10-15 minutes long, over less than three miles, all on the street, with traffic, except for where I have to go thru a parking lot in a few places.
I generally see a dozen or two police vehicles in that time, and some days it's more. When I'm at work I can hear their sirens several times a day, or the blipblipblip of them stopping someone on a street nearby, and at home it's the same, and every few weeks a helicopter booming out words from their "megaphone" at someone they're chasing (often late at night, but can be anytime). The sirens are much less frequent than they used to be not because there are less police / stops / etc., but because for quite a while (years) now they often drive fast chasing or responding without using any sirens or lights for whatever reason.
What doesn't help is that this ebike is very clearly and ebike instead of a bike with a motor on it.
None of my creations in the last decade+ (other than a test bike or two) have been bicycle-like, but I don't generally have any issues because I ride safely and within the rules of the road, etc. Even so, I've been stopped on nearly everything I ride at least once, either because they wanted to see what I was doing or where I was going, or because they wanted to know what I was riding, or because they wanted to thank me for having "the right lighting" or whatever.
But if they'll stop *me* for those, they'll certainly stop others for breaking rules (no, they definitely don't stop everyone breaking a rule). A long while back I saw a lady riding around at night with some partly-blinky christmas lights on her regular pedal bike (I presume to be more easily seen) that had done this for as long as I'd seen her around, who was stopped because she had lights of the wrong color showing on it, and was forced to remove them (I don't know if she was ticketed or not; I dont' remember most of the long and complicated story she had about the police interaction).
If you are in a busty area you best be pedaling..
There's plenty of gas motor and electric motor bikes that people ride without pedalling...but all the ones I see that get left alone are not zipping around, and are riding within the rules of the road.
The ones I've seen or heard of that aren't left alone are zipping around at higher than legal speeds (or higher than safe for the area), or are not riding like cyclists or other road users should. I hardly ever see fast riders in this area, but I see plenty of...well, I'll be nice...plenty of riders of powered and unpowered bicycles that ride the same way a fair number of drivers drive--like they were the only one on the road, like they were invincible, etc.
The other problem with going fast is that drivers (here at least) don't expect that, and they won't react to it correctly. (they dont' react correcly to *regular speed* cyclists)./ So such events can be dangerous to the rider at minimum, potentially others nearby depending on what happens during the interaction of rider and vehicle in that situation.
