NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Reversing an upward trend to near record prices, the cost of gasoline slipped by a penny over the weekend, with a nationwide survey showing a drop for the first time in five weeks. But motorists shouldn't expect a big rollback any time soon.

The average price nationwide for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to $2.919 Monday from $2.929 Friday, with slight declines on Saturday and Sunday, according to the motorist group AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association.

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AAA's Geoff Sundstrom attributed the drop to falling oil prices, which eased by around 5 percent last week as the depletion of U.S. gasoline stocks slowed and President Bush called for the relaxation of certain clean air rules in an effort to control rising prices at the pump.

Sundstrom also said the country is nearing the end of the switchover from the gasoline additive MTBE, a suspected carcinogen, to ethanol, a switchover that helped cause spot outages over the last few weeks and contributed to gasoline's rise.

But he cautioned against building hopes of cheap gas anytime soon.

"A [small] drop doesn't make a trend," he said. "Customers should still prepare themselves for potentially higher prices between now and Memorial Day."

Although gas prices fell by a penny over the weekend, they are still up 15 percent from a month ago and 30 percent since last year. Gasoline reached an all-time high of $3.06 a gallon, not adjusted for inflation, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

At $3.37 a gallon, Hawaiians paid the highest average price for gas, according to AAA. Motorists in other states forking out over $3 a gallon include Arizona, California, Connecticut, New York and Washington, as well as in Washington, D.C.

People in Wyoming got the biggest bargain, paying $2.64 a gallon, about three cents less than the next cheapest state, Montana.

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