Several stations in Edgewater yesterday were selling regular unleaded for as little as $2.93 per gallon, and AAA predicts prices will keep dropping.

"It's been a long time," Tom Brown of Deale said yesterday afternoon as he filled up his Ford F-150 at the Wawa in Edgewater. "I still realize it is more than it was a year ago, but ... it was good to see it go below the $3 mark."

The average price for regular in the Baltimore-Annapolis area yesterday dipped to $3.17 per gallon, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic.

That is 38.5 cents less per gallon than last month and 86.3 cents less than the all-time high set June 17, but still 49 cents more than it was one year ago. The last time regular was this cheap in the mid-Atlantic region was March 3, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Ragina C. Averella, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, credits the relief at the pump to the falling price of crude oil.

"Just a few weeks ago the question concerning gas prices was, 'How high will they go?' Today, the only question is, 'How low will they go?' " she said Friday in a prepared statement.

Crude oil, which traded for as much as $147 a barrel in July, was trading for as little as $77.70 a barrel Friday. The price edged upward yesterday and this morning to $82.76.

"The last time crude oil prices hovered at the $80 mark, pump prices were below $3 a gallon,"

Ms. Averella said, explaining that the price of crude oil accounts for about 72 percent of the price of gas.

"OPEC's bad news should be great news for motorists," she said.

County residents packed into Edgewater gas stations yesterday, eager to fill their tanks for $2.93 a gallon.

"It seems cheap now," Rob Winters of Churchton said yesterday while pumping gas into his father's camper van. "It's interesting how quickly your attitude changes."

Many drivers said high gas prices forced them to change their driving habits, prompting them to leave their SUVs at home and tool around town on scooters and in sedans.

Ms. Averella said that as people drove less, there was less of a demand for fuel. She said that served as a catalyst for the lower prices.

If gas stays below $3 a gallon, however, some drivers expect to revert to their old ways and hop back into their SUVs.

"It's bigger. ... It's more convenient," Jackie Mattingly of Davidsonville said as she filled up her V8-powered Toyota SUV.

Some drivers yesterday still griped that gasoline remains too expensive. Regular unleaded was less than $3 a gallon until Nov. 4 in the mid-Atlantic region, according to federal statistics. It averaged at less than $2.50 as recently as March 2007 and less than $2 until March 2005.

The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded dropped to $3.20 yesterday - down almost 53 cents from a month ago, according to AAA. Ms. Averella said she expects the nationwide price of regular to average $3 a gallon before Thanksgiving.

"Hopefully it will go down even lower," said John Campbell of Deale, as he topped off the tank of his wife's mid-sized car yesterday at the Oceanic Station in Edgewater.