Teen drivers' awareness of vehicle instrumentation in naturalistic research.

•It is not known whether vehicle instrumentation used in naturalistic driving studies (NDS) changes behavior•Participants in an NDS were asked to describe how long they were aware of vehicle instrumentation during an exit interview•Most reported their awareness of the vehicle instrumentation steadily declined•Awareness increased in response to passengers’ comments, if they were involved in a crash, or were contacted by researchers•No association was observed between participant’s awareness of vehicle instrumentation and crashes or elevated g-force events