I had a similar issue with my hosting server account, i asked the server people and they mentioned that the safe mode settings are already as to what i want it to be. Well! i was confused! so i showed them the result via a script that the safe mode is not upto what i want it to be.
So if anyone of you wants to check themself or wanna prove/show some one that the safe mode is on or off on their hosting server account, simply create a new php file in their hosting account directory and add this code to it, save the file and run it from the browser:
<?php
// Check for safe mode
if( ini_get(‘safe_mode’) ){
echo “Safe mode is on”;
}else{
echo “Safe mode is off”;
}?>
Hopefully it solves the issue.