early on someone brought up common disastrous car problems, like a wheel bearing or tie rod.
In the former, usually, you hear/feel it. Unless you always have your music up loud, are completely out of touch with how your car performs, or are in denial that there could be a concern.
Even the tie rod... you start to feel it in the loose, darting steering.
AND, every time you change oil or rotate tires on schedule, any responsible and self-interested mechanic should be happy to point out that it's becoming a problem.

Even the lady whose power steering rack broke free of what was left of the subframe --leading directly to a collision, unsurprisingly-- had had warning that her vehicle was composed of rust and it was time for a new car.

Brakes have split reservoirs, so a sudden and catastrophic leak should only affect 2 wheels. Rusted lines usually seep before they tear open, so again, you'd have had warning...

You always have plenty of time to take care of most accident-causing car issues, and they only happen because the driver fails to take care of it in the very wide window of warning that he should have had. Only tire blowouts can be sudden and unforeseen, if you hit something, but with 4 wheels you recover.



Back to bikes... before fork failure, in any of the materials, do you get warnings? Odd creakings from the shear stresses in the crack that's forming? Visible cracks? Or just inspect every couple months/ couple thousand miles?
In industry, they have replacement cycles to preempt likely failure, or at the least non-destructive sonic testing to detect developing cracks. Like, a new fork every something-thousand miles of highway, fewer if a mountain bike, if you want to be cautious?

Manufacturers of car shocks recommend 50k intervals. Some of that really is fact, some of it is self interest to sell more shocks sooner, and it's definitely a CYA agenda.
Maybe fork manufacturers can respond to concern, by saying "you should replace your fork every ____, and if you don't we're not liable"
Timing belts are a good example. They snap, and statistical models have been made. Some snap at 40k, maybe all of them snap by 400k, but 60-100k is a safe interval for most people. It's all chance, good belts can still fail suddenly. So someone looked at the numbers and found a place where failure rates sharply rose past that number, and 60-100,000 miles is a best compromise for peace of mind but not too much cost. Replace your timing belt after every grocery trip if you need to feel that safe.
As a side advantage, if you purchased an extended warranty on your car and did not replace the timing belt at the manufacturer suggested interval, well, your ruined (if interference) engine is no longer a warranty concern.