> People rarely stop in the middle of a road

How rarely? How does it compare to self driving cars per km driven?

If a person stops in the middle of a road, other people talk to that person, and typically learn what's going on and can help work on resolving it. Are they having a heart attack? Do they need people to push the car? Are they having a road rage incident? Are they a jerk who needs to run into a store and picked the wrong place to stop temporarily to do it? Even if the situation can't be solved, the ability to communicate (or the implication of not being able to communicate) gives predictable, human-friendly feedback which can be shared with emergency services and other people.

So if self driving cars killed 10 people by stopping in the road, but saved 1000 by never hitting pedestrians, that would be a bad trade?

The self-driving car could save many more lives by simply not moving at all from its parking spot, except in cases of medical emergency or imminent threat to life mitigated only by moving.

The economy might be improved somewhat by personal vehicular mobility, but we’re talking about human lives.