There is some excuse in that we, perched on the edge of the North Downs, have hills, but a good deal live on the valley bottom and could easily cycle from home to the shops (takes me about three minutes from front door to bike rack). It's a commuter town, so all the affluent people seem to evaporate during the day, and cycling seems to correlate with affluence. Someone even chains up a fancy recumbent in the station.
But it seems most people would rather drive and complain about parking spaces (there's actually no shortage, but they have to park right outside wherever they're going, not in the free supermarket carparks that bracket the town). I'll admit the roads are pretty horrible, the ones near me are very narrow, over-parked, with cars barreling down the middle. I can perfectly understand why people wouldn't want to cycle, to be honest, it takes a degree of devil-may-care enthusiasm.
I did complain at the health centre about a lack of bike parking the last time I was there (apparently I couldn't bring my bike inside because it would be health and safety hazard, which was odd considering the giant prams and buggies littering the place, but anyway). They seemed bemused by the very prospect that someone would cycle to the doctors.