Sean Haggerty, a veteran truck driver, could have used a number of excuses to pass up a stranded motorist. Where do you want to start?

Too busy. Too hurried. Maybe too worried. Who knows what kind of people you might meet on the freeway these days. Maybe the globe is warming, but people seem to be cooling toward each other.

When Haggerty saw Steve and Leslee Ensminger parked by the side of the road, he could have kept on truckin'.

The Ensmingers had been driving northbound on I-15 somewhere north of Cedar City when their Chevy Tahoe, without warning, decided to stop working. The engine died, and they coasted down an off-ramp and stopped.

One moment they were traveling 70 mph with the air rushing past their windows; then there was just silence and a sinking feeling.

They called a tow-truck driver who promised to be there — in a couple of hours. They called car-rental services, but those were closed until Monday. There were no flights available on Sunday from St. George, even if they could manage to get there.

"We were desperate," says Leslee, a nurse at St. Mark's Hospital who had to report for work the next morning. The Ensmingers' only option was to wait for the tow truck to take them to Cedar City, find a hotel, get the vehicle fixed the next day and return home Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

Haggerty first noticed the Ensmingers on the side of the road when he exited the freeway heading south. A half-hour later, after dropping off his load, he was heading back to Salt Lake City when he saw them there again. He stopped his truck and climbed out.

"Are you broke down?" he asked.

They explained their situation. Next thing they knew, he wasn't merely giving Steve and Leslee a ride — he gave their Tahoe a ride, too. He loaded the sport utility vehicle on his trailer, and the Ensmingers piled into the cab of his truck, and for the next three hours they drove and talked. Haggerty didn't stop until he had delivered them and their car to the doorstep of a mechanic just three miles from their home in Draper.

Leslee was moved to tears. "Let us pay you," she said.

"No," he said. "Pay it back by helping someone else."

With that, Haggerty drove away.

Haggerty can't understand why the Ensmingers were so moved by his assistance. "Wouldn't anyone do that?" he said later.

At 41, Haggerty has been driving the big rigs for more than 20 years. His grandfather taught him to drive trucks in a parking lot when he was a kid, and he's been driving since then. He raised two daughters alone while transporting heavy equipment for Wheeler Machinery Company.

Along the way, he has been delivering acts of kindness without pay or notice.