America is facing a trucker crisis.

As it readies for the busy holiday delivery season, the industry is expecting to be short about 73,000 long-distance drivers, more than three times the shortage of 2005, and that could lead to delivery delays and higher shipping costs.

"It's at a point today where it is an operational hardship. It could soon be that at your store, not everything is there that you are accustomed to being there," said Bob Costello, chief economist and senior vice president of the American Trucking Associations.

"This is an industry that has problems finding drivers," he told the Washington Examiner.

While the country has more than enough big rigs to move America's commerce, the driver shortage is hitting every industry, not just FedEx or UPS. The incoming president of the National Pork Producers Council, for example, said his sprawling industry is being affected, and sometimes he is finding it difficult to get pork products to market or to ports to be shipped overseas.

"We can't get drivers," said Ken Maschhoff, whose Illinois company, the Maschhoffs Inc., is the nation's third-largest pork producer. "There is a severe shortage of truck transport drivers."

Costello explained that the shortage has led to a massive turnover rate, somewhat similar to the IT world where the demands of companies outstrip worker supply.

The American Trucking Associations has raised concerns that if some changes aren't made, the shortage could grow to 174,000 by 2024.

In a report, the group said the shortage is driven partly because of retirements, drivers trying to stay home more instead of being on the road for 10 straight days, low pay and the difficulty of trucking companies to find operators with clean driving records.

The shortage has prompted calls for driverless trucks and a lowering of the interstate driving age from 21.

"Autonomous commercial trucks could eventually have a positive impact on the driver shortage," said a report from the group. "Eventually, one could envision an environment when the longer, line-haul portion of truck freight movements are completed by autonomous trucks and local pick-up and delivery routes are completed by drivers."

As with drones, the federal government would have to approve robotic trucks on the roads.

Costello also said Washington could create a "pilot program" to give drivers younger than 21 a provisional license to haul big rigs across state lines. Currently, several states allow drivers 18-21 to drive tractor-trailers.

To explain the crisis, Costello pointed to truck-driving schools. Typically, students go through hours of classes before getting their commercial driver's license before applying for a job. But now, he said, "on day one they are getting recruited."

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com