CABBIE WILLIAM SPIVEY, 50
Defending the road

Leaving Helen, Ga., on the night of Feb. 27, cabbie William "Bubba" Spivey drove over a hill and found himself face to face with an oncoming car on the wrong side of Interstate 20. Knowing a drunk driver had recently killed a father and his two children on that same stretch of road, Spivey decided on the spot to stop the oncoming car with his own. "If I stop dead still, I could block it," he said to himself, "and I believe I could survive the impact."

As others sped by, Spivey forced the other car off the road, then shouted to the driver, "Lady, you're on the wrong side of the interstate!" "No, I'm not," insisted Martha Bracken, 55, who tried to drive around him. But steering his car into hers, Spivey pushed her off the highway and jumped out to grab her keys.

Weeks later, Bracken pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and driving on the wrong side of the road. "I'm glad he stopped me," says the Crawfordville, Ga., resident. Spivey, a divorced father of two from Langley, S.C., felt he had no choice. "If I didn't try to stop her," he says, "and she killed somebody, I might as well have been driving that car."