NEW GLOUCESTER – Selectmen agreed Monday to form an ad hoc committee to deal with speeding, dangerous driving and limited police enforcement in town.

New Gloucester relies on patrols from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and Maine State Police.

Last May, voters overwhelmingly turned down funding for a police officer to patrol the town 40 hours a week.

A group of residents from Cobb’s Bridge Road had asked selectmen to address speeding and traffic enforcement, and on Monday night, Patrick O’Brien, Bonnie Waybright and Janet Smaldon presented a printed neighborhood survey and traffic report completed in August. O’Brien said the group received responses from 20 of 26 residents on the road.

“It really behooves us as a community to provide a certain level of safety to the town,” O’Brien said. “I don’t want to put kids into body bags,” he said.

Eighty percent said the speeding problem will only worsen, while 95 percent said state and county law enforcers are not managing the problem effectively. Sixty percent of respondents said local patrol service is at a low level and not useful, and 40 percent ranked the service as average.

O’Brien held up fragments of broken parts of a motorcycle retrieved Sunday near his home. The driver, he said, stood up on the bike’s foot pegs, waved his arms in the air, then fell backward off the bike while the bike careened into a ditch and onto a nearby lawn.

“It took 50 minutes for a trooper to arrive, and that fellow was taking a huge risk to himself and the neighborhood,” O’Brien said.

He said 100 percent of those responding thought there is a speeding problem along the Cobb’s Bridge Road, and 90 percent feel unsafe because of it.

Board of Selectmen Chairman Steve Libby said townwide speed and enforcement issues have existed since his youth. He said they’re serious and there are no funds or staff to deal with them.

Selectman Lenora Conger said she would serve on the committee. In the late 1980s she served on a law enforcement study committee that ended when voters disbanded the town police department in 1989.

Those interested in serving on the committee are asked to call the town office at 926-4126. Appointments will be made in October.

In other business, selectmen approved negotiating a contract for the town’s legal services with Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer and Nelson of Portland.