Heavy fines are one thing, but one Vancouver woman says people could face an even greater consequence if they drink and drive -- they could kill someone they love, like she did.

Heather Carlton was 19 years old when she decided to drive home after a night of drinking and smoking marijuana with friends.

"Police had suggested that maybe I was street-racing with my friends. I don't remember. I know I was going way too fast and had that attitude of, ‘I can make it; I can always make it,'" she told CTV News.

Her best friend Maria was in the car when it crashed.

"The crash was two blocks long. It was a pretty horrific crash," Carlton said.

Maria died of her injuries that night, but Carlton says the news didn't really sink in until the next day, when she woke up in a holding cell at the police station.

"They had to put me in a padded cell after they gave me the news, because they weren't quite certain how I would respond and how I would treat myself," she said.

Fifteen years later, Carlton says she's haunted by what happened that night. "It's this forever guilt," she said.

"There's a part where I want to be healthy, move on, and then there's a part of humiliation, where I want to always remember how my ignorance or my attitude of invincibility can destroy and cause harm in seconds."

A stipulation of her conditional sentence after the crash was that she speak to teenagers about the terrible consequences that split-second decisions can have.

Carlton repeats the same message -- "You love your buddies. Keep them safe," -- to high school audiences to this day.

"You've got this idea that you can always go out and that your friends are always going to be safe and you love them a great deal. When you find out that one decision that you made in seconds -- that everything is going to be fine and I can get behind the wheel of a car -- becomes now the purchasing of a casket for your best friend...it's devastating."

She said she's hopeful that the new, stiffer fines and regulations around drinking and driving could impact some people's decisions.

"I think that a lot of people who have issues with alcohol, problems with drinking, it's not going to change much," Charlton said.

But the new regulations could have an impact on the majority of people, who might be tempted to have a few drinks and drive home.

"The fact that I might have to take out a loan to pay that debt off, or I won't be able to get to work the next day, I think people are going to think more about the decisions they're going to make."

Watch CTV News at Six for a full report from St. John Alexander