These cars don't have blind spots. They setup the spinny lidars to get almost 360 degree coverage and also dedicated lidars that are for nearfield detection. It

These cars don't have blind spots. They setup the spinny lidars to get almost 360 degree coverage and also dedicated lidars that are for nearfield detection. It's very hard, if not impossible, to sneak up on these cars. There are also techniques to drive defensively/safely if there is uncertainty about the scene. For potholes, it's a function of detection. You can't rely on mapping data, because potholes aren't something that might exist at the time of mapping, so you have use lidar/radar to detect a hole, but depending on angle, if there is another car in front, time of lidars, etc. it might be difficult to detect. My speculation is that the cars just ram through it.