In August edition of Rodale’s ScubaDiving they quote a survey in which 25% of the people polled admitted to jumping in the water, at least once, without turning their air on.
I can only guess the same rule of thumb that applies to peeing in your wetsuit is going on here:
50% of divers admit to peeing in their wetsuits. The other 50% lie about it. 
I’ve never quite made it into the water forgetting to turn my air on (thanks to some thoughtful divemasters and the fact that I make it a habit to take a few breaths off the reg before I enter the water) but I’ve had a few buddies (and other instructors) swim up to me and sheepishly ask if I could turn their air on for them.
Despite this perfect record (chuckle), my worst mental lapse was when I got to the gate to exit the boat and the divemaster just looked at me. I put my reg in my mouth as I asked “What?” and she replied “You’re not going in like that are you?” I did a quick pat down of my gear thinking I might be twisted up or something and upon finding everything in it’s place I said “Sure, why?” “Well, unless you’re going to go running along the bottom you’re probably going to need your fins,” she replied. Lucky for me I was one of the last divers off the boat so that incident stayed our little secret.
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