"it slowly dawned on me that the landscape of science is maybe what interests people a great deal in science fiction."
- Gregory Benford

There was even a provision for taking back control of an autonomous car without a steering wheel:

"Whoa!” I shouted. "There’s something wrong here!”

The only explanation that I could possibly think of was that I had made some mistake in Betting the dials. Yet, that was not altogether plausible. I could readily see how I might have made some minor error which could have gotten me off the track a little. But this sort of behavior would necessitate a radical and fundamental error; and I felt sure that I knew more about them than to have set them completely backwards.

I reached for the levers that were used to drive the car by “actual control” as the people called it; that is, to control each movement individually; and I tried to turn it around. There was a good deal of grinding and knocking in the mechanism, and much irregularity in the car’s progress; but it continued its course back home, and would not answer to my efforts. Therefore, I decided that something had gone wrong with the mechanism.

Dr. David H. Keller, MD, also described at length an autonomous car in his 1935 story The Living Machine:

[John Poorson, inventor, was inspired by an all-to-common circumstance:]

The glancing blow from the recklessly driven automobile had spun him into the gutter, but had injured little except his pride and his clothing.

"And that is just one more reason why the average human being should not be allowed to drive such a powerful machine!" he mused to himself. "it has taken the combined intelligence of all the scientists of modern time to perfect the automobile and yet it is sold to and driven by any moronic fool who is able to gather together the few dollars necessary to buy a secondhand one."

[Now, let's see what he created in response to this incident.]

"I want to show you something new in the way of an automobile."

"Nothing new about this," laughed Babson, scornfully. "One of our best and most familiar models."

"How about the steering wheel?"

"Where is it?"

"I do not need one. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Now watch me. We are going into traffic..."

Old people began to cross the continent in their own cars. Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting. The blind for the first time were safe. Parents found they could more safely send their children to school in the new car than in the old cars with a chauffeur.