Sadly, courtesy and many of today's hunters are total strangers. Those people saw your local truck tags and I would bet my bottom dollar they said "oh I'll bet this is a good spot, these guys are local!"
Getting turned around in heavy woods is a danger not uncommon to even the BEST of us outdoorsmen. When blood trailing your focus is down rather than paying close attention to where you are actually going. And if you are afternoon hunting with a bow you are trailing into darkness most times. Hell I got turned around one time on my own dang property in Pa. 220 acres isn't all that much but it actually took me a few minutes to figure out just where I was! Was blood trailing a fat buck that I had a lung/liver hit on (arrow took a weird turn at impact) so it was a fairly long trail. Found the deer after about 1.5 hours blood/hoof trailing. Was so turned around it was actually hilarious. Dang deer had made 2 full circles like a figure 8. Never seen a whitetail do that before. It had me so bumfuggled I was laughing like a crazy person. Thinking "just how in the hell am I lost on my own damn property!?"