dual NICs Question

I have a server with Dual NIC. Each NICs are connected to different ISPs. I
noticed that Windows Server 2003 only uses 1 gateway and the gateway used is
in the primary NIC or the NIC that has the fastest connection. Now that my
2nd NIC only serves as a backup when the other NIC dies the other will take
over. However is it also possible for the standby NIC to accept traffic while
its on idle mode? Let's say I will make a Static Route packets from the idle
nic 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 will be forwarded to the idle nic's ip address. Is
that possible?

Thanks