The moving industry faces a critical shortage of drivers, and officials at the American Moving & Storage Association said they are preparing a program to do something about it.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Freight rates will continue to rise by several percentage points this year, carriers and shippers said, which should open the door for further pay increases for drivers.

After reading the Jan. 16 article titled “Gasoline, Other Fuels Top U.S. Exports” (p. 24), it occurred to me to ask why we — the United States — are exporting gasoline and other fuels with the obvious demand that is domestic.

According to analysts at a transportation research organization, the industry is facing an increasingly acute shortage of drivers — as many as 135,000 this year.

Trucking industry officials and employment experts said fleets can maximize the contributions from an aging workforce through specialized training and altering certain job tasks and hours.

Truck driver turnover is increasing steadily and exceeding pre-recession levels at both large and small truckload fleets, propelled by a combination of higher freight volumes and tighter regulations, industry experts have said.

I’ve driven some “oversize” equipment myself within the past three years, and while not necessarily as “monstrous” as what the letter writer is probably moving most of the time, the 11-foot-wide unescorted mobile cranes and/or 14.3-foot double-decker buses are still considered oversize.

Trucking’s driver shortage is getting worse, as freight demand grows modestly and the qualified driver corps dwindles, a trend that’s making drivers more desirable than equipment, industry officials said.

Trucking today faces one of the worst driver shortages ever, a situation experts say will only get worse, while at the same time, national unemployment recently topped 15%.

Rickey Oliver, a Mississippi-based truck driver for WalMart Transportation, was named American Trucking Associations’ 2011 National Truck Driver of the Year.