*This is an odd one to call.  There has been an increasing trend in recent years in France and Spain to devolve road operations to lower levels of government.  In France, a process similar to detrunking has been carried out, only this has resulted in roads being handed over to the départments becoming chemins départmentaux, often with new numbers.  Only those roads in areas without autoroutes (e.g. Brittany) tend to be preserved.  The South African example is longer, but seems to be an odd route, going from midway along a main route, by-passing the Gauteng conurbation without an obvious major destination on the way, though I don't profess any great socio-geographic knowledge of South Africa.  The traffic stats and internal link counts will probably be key here in addition to the Google hits.