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The Autopilot feature is designed to allow Teslas to cruise highways without drivers steering, braking or accelerating.

Source: Mosher, Alexandra, “Tesla drivers play Jenga, sleep, using Autopilot in nerve-wracking videos,” USA Today, July 1, 2016

Is it possible to change drivers to driver's in the sentence above I found on the Internet?

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    The possessive there would not be idiomatic. We need to be secretive. It has to be done without people finding out.
    – Tᴚoɯɐuo
    Jun 6, 2018 at 11:54
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    No, because it means without the drivers needing to steer,....” The **steering does not belong to the driver
    – Ronald Sole
    Jun 6, 2018 at 12:20
  • @RonaldSole You should write an answer along those lines.
    – user3169
    Jun 7, 2018 at 3:58

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No. "Steering", "braking" and "accelerating" in this instance are all nouns for the actions carried out by the driver.

You see it is the vehicle that is accelerating (which is a verb), but the driver is carrying out an action which causes the vehicle to accelerate, and that is a noun because it is what we call that action. What the driver is actually doing is pressing pedals and turning a wheel, and of course the pressing and turning are verbs. But "accelerating" and "braking" are just what we call those actions carried out by the driver. So you would not speak of the driver possessing the accelerating, braking or whatever in this instance.

The Autopilot feature is designed to allow Teslas to cruise highways without drivers steering, braking or accelerating.

If your intention is to make the sentence refer to a single driver you could change it to:

The Autopilot feature is designed to allow Teslas to cruise highways without the driver steering, braking or accelerating.

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    Aren't "steering, braking and accelerating" simply verbs here?
    – user68033
    Jun 6, 2018 at 16:16
  • And this is where you would use the possessive. "The drivers' steering was affected by their consumption of alcohol." Note the apostrophe goes after the 's' since drivers is plural.
    – EllieK
    Jun 6, 2018 at 16:33
  • @Bilkokuya No I don't believe so. The vehicle is accelerating (which is a verb), but the driver is carrying out an action which causes the vehicle to accelerate, and that is a noun. What the driver is actually doing is pressing (verb) pedals and turning (verb) a wheel. "Accelerating" and "braking" are just the names we call those actions.
    – Astralbee
    Jun 6, 2018 at 16:36
  • @Astralbee See this. The first test you can perform is adding an object (nouns don't take direct objects; verbs do) to see whether the word at issue is a verb: ...without the driver steering the car ← looks OK. So, it's a verb. But you can also use an adverb and an adjective in front of the word (as modifiers, adjectives go with nouns, while adverbs go with verbs): ...without the driver carefully steering ← this one's alright; ...without the driver careful steering ← nope.
    – user3395
    Jun 6, 2018 at 16:58
  • @userr2684291 Why does the Oxford dictionary define "steering" as a noun? en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/steering
    – Astralbee
    Jun 7, 2018 at 11:02
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In this case it is "drivers". The " 's " is only used when the noun possesses / owns the item, with the exception of "it's".

The driver does not own or possess "steering, braking or accelerating". They perform (or do) these actions.

This means that the fragment

drivers steering, braking or accelerating.

indicates multiple different drivers each performing some combination of "steering, braking or accelerating"

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