That junction is a brilliant display of awful driving.
Heading City-bound you have "traffic lights, tram lines, gap, pedestrian crossing"
Heading Beeston-bound you have "traffic lights, pedestrian crossing, gap, tram lines"
IME when there is queuing traffic...
About 10% will do what you expect - sit at the lights/line until they can clear the crossing, gap, and tram lines.
About 40% will move into the gap
About 30% will block the pedestrian crossings
About 20% will block the tram tracks
As someone regularly using the crossings I've lost count of the number of times I've been crossing on the green light when the traffic in the gap/on the tram lines starts driving over the crossing without looking (especially bad on the city bound side).
One the Beeston bound side I've seen plenty of cars who stop between the traffic lights and tram lines (either the gap or on the crossing) start moving when the trams starting to enter the crossing - I can imagine that in heavy traffic the trams (which will be coming from behind you) aren't easy to see.
In this particular case I've heard from numerous 3rd party sources that the van driver ran a red light while texting - but I've not seen this from any news source yet - although one of the people who told me said they heard it on Radio Nottingham.
And just to rub salt into the wound - the following morning some eejit managed to drive onto the tram only bridge and get stuck on Lenton Lane
http://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/car-tram-tracks-mean-no-888863 - how you mange what without wearing a blindfold I've no idea - it's got enough bleeding signs, lights, and reflectors now!