Why didn't the AT-AT's stop walking?

In Star Wars Episode Five, during the Battle of Hoth, numerous AT-ATs' legs were tied up by snowspeeders. From what I understand, this was a new tactic that was invented on the spot by Luke Skywalker after conventional methods to bring the walkers down (primarly lasers from the bases turrets and the speeders themselves) failed to damage the heavy armor plating. This being said, it seems as if the walker captains had no little to no knowledge of what was actually going on. Were there no hydraulic feedback mechanisms between the legs and the dashboard that would alert the pilots of the issue? Did other walker captains not understand what the rebels were trying to do? Did they just fail to communicate with the "lassoed" walker's captains to tell him to stop walking forward? Or did they underestimate the strength of the cables? Strategically speaking, the least they could have done is remain stationary and provide support from afar. Numerous possibilites come to my mind regarding this issue. But for multiple walkers to go down due to a perfectly avoidable tactic seems like a collective failure on the part of the ground forces. Was there something else going on that viewers didn't know about?