The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas is $2.747, down a penny from last week's price but still a full 18 cents more than it was during the same period in 2009.

According to AAA's Fuel Gauge, gasoline prices were highest in the western states and parts of the Midwest. States in the South payed somewhere around a dollar less per gallon than those states with the highest fuel prices. Alaska and Hawaii had the highest prices in the U.S., averaging $3.50 a gallon (the highest in the lower 48 was California at $3.15). South Carolina had the lowest average prices in the country with drivers paying $2.52 per gallon.

The trucking industry is being hit even harder by higher fuel prices this summer as the national average price of a gallon of diesel fuel has risen to $2.955, 37 cents more than it was a year ago.

Prices at the pump mirrored an upward trend in oil futures as the price of crude oil surged ahead to over $82 per barrel, its highest price since the first week of May.

Analysts expect that over the next four weeks motorists will experience the high end of fuel prices in 2010 as fuel prices tend to decline sharply during the months of September and October.

Keeping average prices away from the $3-a-gallon psychological threshold (and well-away from the $4-a-gallon tipping point) will be of particular interest to oil companies as Americans have shown they will change their behavior once gas prices reach critical thresholds.

Photo: CC licensed by Burning Image