> To me it seems like it would be more concise to have driveway lines that are connected to the road instead of areas that have big gaps between them and the road.I don't how it would even work for something like routing. 

Some people tag both road line (highway=* tag) and road area (area:highway=*) tag. I am not a great fan of this idea (it seems to be a waste of time for me), but it has some popularity - see https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/area%3Ahighway#overview (120k uses, mostly in Europe)