FWIW, I dated a German exchange student in highschool (in the US). When asked why she came to the US, she said her dad sent all of her siblings to the US to take driver's ed and get their US license as it was valid in Germany. Apparently it is many thousands of dollars^Weuros to get all of the necessary requirements completed to get a German drivers license.
I didn't mean to come off quite like I originally phrased that, more of it might be interesting for the perspective gained. Also, when I was in Berlin for 2 weeks (the GNOME/KDE Desktop summit) several years ago, I'd have stayed as well had I not been married. Wonderful country (and my family is racially of german descent so...)
A driver's license in Germany costs 1400+ euros, covering a minimum of 12*90min learning, 12h driving, a written test, and a driving test. If you fail the tests you have to take more hours. Bad drivers pay 3000+ euros until they pass.
This is technically true, but it's very common to take more hours than the absolute minimum. Good driving schools don't send you off to take your practical exam if they don't think you have a good chance to pass.
It has less to do with being a bad driver and more with your learning progress. If you're a bad driver, you shouldn't pass the practical exam no matter how often you take it -- and your driving school shouldn't send you to it in the first place.
Case in point: I paid for a ridiculous number of lessons because I switched instructors halfway through and was full-time self-employed. If I had been able to keep a tighter schedule I could have done it in a fraction of the time. I passed the written and practical exams on the first attempt but what bloated the costs was having up to two week gaps in between driving lessons.
To expand on your summary: it's 12 classes (only two classes that are mandatory, for the rest you just have to show up to ten of them in total, you can go to the same class multiple times) but going to those classes is rarely enough to pass the written exam, so you normally also get a book. As the written exam is a (mostly) multiple-choice test with questions from a well-known pool, there's also software that lets you train the exact pool of questions which your exam will be based on. Many driving schools have you take a simulated exam before they give you the paperwork you need to sign up for the real thing. How long it takes you before you can pass the exam mostly depends on how good you are at rote learning.
The 12h driving consists of various lessons. These include various scenario-based lessons (i.e. driving on the Autobahn, driving at night-time and driving on rural roads). You have to take a specified number of lessons for each scenario. You also have to take a minimum number of regular driving lessons but most people I know have done more than the bare minimum for various reasons. Most driving instructors do these lessons in batches of two per session (as, depending on traffic, you can easily spend half a lesson just getting to the training area and back).
I think this part is different from the US: driving lessons (even the very first one) are generally done in real traffic. Although you often do a few of the early exercises in safe environments, many instructors make you drive there and back. Driving instructors are trained to operate cars from the front passenger seat (which, btw, is called Beifahreritz -- literally "co-driver seat" -- in German) using a second set of pedals and mirrors the training cars are equipped with; so they can always take over and simply grab the steering wheel if necessary.
One the one had, a driver's license is not required in many German cities on account of their public transportation systems. However it is useful sometimes for intercity travel. But then they have a culture of ride-sharing too.
At the same time, it's good to have an experienced teacher with you when you first hit the autobahn. Finding out how fast your car can actually be is quite scary at the beginning, and you need to keep an eye on quite a few things.
A person who knows how to operate a vehicle is always going to be better off in life than a person who doesn't. Emergencies happen, road trips happen, etc.
Actually, I think that's incorrect. I'd say that the median person who knows how to drive is better off than the median person without that skill. Certainly the best person who doesn't know how to drive is better off than the worst person who can drive, and it probably has nothing to do with driving ability.
In Finland, approx. 2500€ for a drivers licence in a driving school, includes approx. 25 lectures (a 45 min), 25 one-on-one driving sessions (a 45 min) with a teacher, and some practice of slippery conditions on a special track. The school also provides the car.
I didn't mean to come off quite like I originally phrased that, more of it might be interesting for the perspective gained. Also, when I was in Berlin for 2 weeks (the GNOME/KDE Desktop summit) several years ago, I'd have stayed as well had I not been married. Wonderful country (and my family is racially of german descent so...)