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Labor Day weekend drivers may be able to put the pedal to the metal with less pain in the next few days, with gas prices dropping locally and nationally.

Average prices in the Bay Area are approaching $3 a gallon, with gas going for as low as $2.75 a gallon. Regular unleaded gas was selling today for $3.08 on the Peninsula, $3.04 in the East Bay and $3.03 in the San Jose metro area, according to AAA.

Motorists gearing up for a last blast before the end of summer will find the news a pleasant surprise. Just weeks ago, BP Plc announced it was closing Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, one of California’s biggest oil suppliers, for repairs. Luckily, BP reconsidered and decided to keep half the field open.

Oil prices are below $70 a barrel (down about $3 a barrel in the past week), the end of the summer driving season is approaching and people are gearing down their demand in the face of higher prices. All these factors have combined to bring prices down, according to David Greene, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.The $3-a-barrel decline “accounts for about 7 cents in the price drop per gallon,” Greene said.Also, prices typically shrink at the end of summer, the “so-called driving season,” Greene said.

People are reacting to gas prices going up by limiting their driving, according to Greene, but less than in previous years.

Gas prices peaked in May but still remain well above year-ago levels.

At this time last year, regular unleaded gas was selling for an average of $2.85 a gallon on the Peninsula, $2.80 in the East Bay and $2.79 in the San Jose metro area, according to AAA.

In early 2004, the price of gas was about $1.60 to $1.80 a gallon nationally. By the end of that year, the average U.S. price was up to around $1.90 to $2. After spiking at almost $3 a gallon in 2005, gas dipped back to $2.30, and this year it went back up to around $3.