Gas Prices Drop Just in Time for Record Independence Day Travel Weekend

If you're hitting the road for the Fourth of July, you won't be alone, and you might pay a little less to get there.

AAA expects more than 72 million Americans, 72.2 million to be exact, to travel 50 miles or more between June 27th and July 5th for America's 250th birthday celebrations. That would be a new travel record. Most of them, nearly 62 million, are driving, according to AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz. "We over the years saw that people really either take off the entire week or they'll leave the weekend before," Diaz said.

The good news for drivers is gas prices are dropping. As of Saturday, the national average for a gallon of regular gas sat at $3.88, down 58 cents in the last month, though still higher than this time last year. Diaz said the drop could pull in last-minute travelers. "We are seeing some improvement there and that might motivate some people who maybe weren't planning to take a road trip to jump in the car and do it," she said. Drivers locally are paying a lot more than that national number, though. Regular gas in Riverside County is averaging $5.29 a gallon, down from $5.40 a week ago, but still more than a dollar higher than this time last year, when the average sat at $4.41.

Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil, said prices are easing because more oil tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that much of the world's oil supply passes through. "Gasoline prices are dropping and in the next 30 days you're going to see them drop," Kloza said, adding the strait is "open enough right now so that the next 30 to 40 days you'll see a lot of oil and you'll see generally weak prices."

Traffic through the strait has picked up more in the last week than in the previous three months combined. It had nearly stopped after fighting broke out between the U.S. and Iran, disrupting oil production worldwide and sending gas prices soaring. The U.S. and Iran appeared close to finalizing an agreement, though tensions between the two countries are rising again, and officials worry traffic through the strait could halt once more, which would send gas prices back up just as millions of Americans get ready to travel this week.