Za Vivian said her daughter was known as the "granny driver" of the family and would even indicate while still in the driveway.
"Victoria was not perfect of course, but when it came to driving she was excellent.
"She was paranoid about driving. It was something we talked a lot about. For her to be killed this way is so unfair."
She said a key reason she and her family had declined restorative justice was the fact De la Harpe initially pleaded not guilty, maintaining that he'd seen Victoria's headlights in his lane.
It wasn't until the Serious Crash Unit showed him evidence that it was him who'd drifted more than a metre into her lane, that he changed his plea.
De la Harpe, who had been driving to his truck-driving job in his Toyota Hilux Surf at the time, still maintains he saw the lights and swerved to the left, losing control and then back into the other lane where he collided with Victoria's car.
Today Judge Stephanie Edwards sentenced the 33-year-old father of three to nine months supervision, disqualified him from driving for one year and ordered him to pay emotional harm reparation of $3000 to the Vivian family.
"No one thinks their child will be killed in a car crash. That kind of thing happens on television or to other people," Za Vivian said.
She wouldn't let her remaining daughter Lily Vivian drive for weeks after the accident and now only in a large utility vehicle because Victoria died while driving a small car.
Vivian told the court she thinks about her daughter's death all the time.
"Victoria's final moments in this world, and she was all alone. She died a vicious and cruel death in the pouring rain, in the dark, in her little car.
"Did she call out for her mum or her sister in her last moments?
"These thoughts will haunt me all my life until I take that last satisfying breath."
Victoria's father Glen Vivian took a different approach to his ex-wife and took up De la Harpe on his offer of restorative justice to seek closure over his daughter's death.
He said after an emotionally-charged meeting he came out sympathetic for De la Harpe.
"He too troubles with sleep at night. He's lost his own livelihood and his will to live.
"I looked at a very broken family man sitting before me, and I told him that Victoria would have forgiven him, therefore so do I.
"I truly believe we have all suffered enough."
On the day Victoria died there was a freak weather event in the Rangitīkei area that saw rain falling so hard the windscreen wipers were virtually ineffective.
De la Harpe's lawyer Steve Winter told the court that it was a fraction of second of carelessness that led to the accident.
"We have a previously safe driver in a very challenging set of circumstances, trying to make the right decision but executing it poorly with tragic consequences."
Winter told the court that his client constantly asked himself why wasn't it him who'd died instead of Victoria.
"He would have preferred it was him who was dead, and in that frame of mind attempted to take his own life, after the accident," Winter said.
"The use of the word remorse to cover his reaction is an understatement."
In her sentencing this evening Judge Edwards said De la Harpe had expressed genuine and significant remorse since the accident, even attempting to reach out to the family while he was himself still seriously injured.
"All of us who work at the court know that these [cases] are the most difficult we have to deal with," she said.
"They involve a moment of carelessness that we can all, as drivers relate to."
Judge Edwards placed his culpability of carelessness at the low end and said it was an act of carelessness that anyone could have made.
"There's probably nobody in this room who could confidently say that their response would have been to swerve out of the way of a head-on collision."
